Erik Fish's blog
Dream With God
April 30, 2010 by Erik Fish
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You ask God, “What is Your will for my life?”
Sometimes God responds, “What is in your heart?”
Does the Lord care about your heart?
Does He care about the things your heart desires?
Yes!
As my children grow, I often ask them, “What do you want to do when you’re older?” I look to see how God has uniquely shaped them – their gifts, the things they’re passionate about – and the things that concern them about the world they hope to change.
Fathers watch for the dreams of their child’s heart, and encourage them to go for it.
As your heart is set on loving Jesus, He shapes the desires of your heart. As you keep Jesus first in your life, pursuing these desires of your heart is an act of faith in the God who designed you in His image.
This is a season to dream with God. The world is shaped by those with the courage to risk failure and reputation to pursue the God-shaped design of their heart.
In the beginning, God told the first people (paraphrased), “Be fruitful and multiply. Tend the garden. Fill the earth…just don’t eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
God had some general instructions, but He left a tremendous amount of freedom up to Adam and Eve to decide how to tend the garden and where to go as they pursued God’s challenge for them to fill the earth. He left a lot up to them for how to dream and imagine and shape the garden and the earth according to the design God put inside them – their initiative and creativity would reflect His very nature. They abused this freedom and disobeyed the one thing He told them not to do. But God wasn’t done yet. He started a process of redemption in history to restore in us what was lost in the garden.
So, what did God want to restore that was lost in the garden? It’s a theological question humans have wrestled with for millennia. Early on God saw fit to give His people a complex system of laws in order to stay in covenant relationship with Him. Why did He do this? Paul says the Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ. I believe part of the reason for the Law was to show us that living by a system of rules and laws can never bring us to freedom and restore God’s dream for the planet. Waiting for explicit commands sometimes can inhibit us from pursuing things God’s already planted in our heart to pursue.
When Christ died and rose again, what did He accomplish? Did He set us free to dream with God again out of a transformed heart? Or did He just start a new system of Laws?
Today, God is restoring this aspect of dreaming with Him to see the world filled with people who dare to accomplish great things for God out of the passions of their heart.
The last year, my wife and I have been on an interesting adventure. We’ve experienced divine leading, supernatural open doors, specific direction, and times of waiting on the Lord. We’ve laid our lives before the Lord and said, “We’ll go anywhere you want to send us.”
The funny thing is, often we don’t sense God saying anything about where to go next. As we’ve prayed and sought God, we started to experience a part of God’s nature we had never experienced before.
We felt the Lord saying,
“What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What do you dream about? You can do anything. You can go anywhere.”
“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
(Psalm 37:4)
Here’s the conclusion we’ve come to:
“When your heart is set to obey the Lord, and He gives no specific direction, it’s time to press toward the desires of your heart.”
What is in your heart?
There are seasons when we must wait on the Lord for specific instructions. We should always be tuned to alter our plans according to His specific leading. But here’s the side of God I believe He is calling many of us to know in this season: When you delight yourself in the Lord, pressing into the desires of your heart is an act of faith.
Do we actually believe God is big enough to give us the desires of our heart, protect us wherever we go, and that pursuing the desires of our heart is actually a journey into encountering Him in deeper ways?
For the world, we have good news to offer. If you delight yourself in the Lord, you’ll discover the dreams of your heart are already in His will for you.
This is an hour for dreaming and going. This is an hour for you to respond in faith and honor God by praying and responding out of the dreams of your heart.
If your heart is set on loving God and obeying Him, then I want to ask you,
“What do you dream of?
Where do you want to go?
What do you want to do?
Dream with God and trust Him to shepherd you as your pursue the dreams of your heart!
-- Erik
SPIRITUAL FAMILY OR MOVEMENT?
February 17, 2010 by Erik Fish
Comments (6)
“The Lord sets the solitary in families.”
Psalm 68:6
Q: Multiplication and reproduction. What do you call it?
A: The answer is two-fold. You can call it a movement or you can call it a growing family.
When lots of kids are born – it’s a great thing. However, if families aren’t set in place, with spiritual moms and dads walking in their responsibility, the results aren’t so good.
In the natural, when there is rapid reproduction and multiplication of children without fathers and mothers in place, children are born into an environment without healthy families to grow up in. Lots of reproduction and multiplication with healthy families and dads and moms in place produces an environment for children to grow up and change the world.
The last several months, my heart has been moved to talk about spiritual family among the student/simple church movement. It’s time to talk a bit less about movement and talk more about growing spiritual families.
There is a broader, decentralized movement of ideas occurring in North America regarding church planting movements. However, I’ve watched people try to build churches around ideas and trainings end in exhaustion and frustration. A shift is coming we must respond to. If a church planting movement doesn’t grow healthy families – both natural and spiritual -- we’re producing a skewed version of the church.
We cannot be a movement built on ideas and trainings. We must mature into spiritual families built on relationships. By spiritual family, I mean groups of people with spiritual fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins – a growing family with a sense of shared DNA and destiny, relational history of overcoming struggles together, shared values and love for one another, and a wealth of experiences spending time together and doing life together.
Spiritually speaking, a movement without the values of family produces orphaned children who struggle to know their place and identity in the world. It produces kids who “know all the answers” but end up disillusioned and feeling out of place in the world. In a spiritual family, spiritual fathers and mothers give guidance to the next generation as they go out to tackle the great dream of seeing the nations filled with God’s glory.
The metaphor for “spiritual family” has sometimes been an instrument for control in the church – an attempt to hold on to spiritual kids to keep them from leaving home. God’s normal process of maturity in a family happens when kids leave and start their own families. The family grows when kids are not dependent on their fathers and mothers any longer. The relationship doesn’t weaken between parents and their children – the parents get to be grandparents now. That’s how the church is supposed to work.
As a father, there would be nothing honorable about having 20 and 30-year-old children who are still dependent on me and living in my home. I dream of my children pursuing their God-given dreams, starting their own families, and always trying to get home for Christmas visits and family reunions. (They’re all under 8 years old, so hopefully that goes like we believe for!) Oh and by the way, I seriously doubt we will ever have trainings in our family about “how to grow the Fish family.” Family happens by shared DNA, experiencing a sense of shared destiny together, overcoming struggles together, loving each other, and spending time living life together.
In the process of growing movements and spiritual family, it’s quite similar.
God’s plan for the earth started with a family. Family is the model through which we understand God the Father growing a family in the earth. In Acts, Paul promises the Philippian jailer “you and your whole family will be saved.”
An overview of the life of Paul the apostle shows his deep network of relationships he had built. Sometimes we tend to think Paul just traveled and sparked church planting movements. Well, he did. But he invested deeply into the lives of those he touched. Some later deserted him, but in the latter years of his life we see him writing deeply vulnerable letters to people he had spent years with, traveled with, suffered with, and loved with.
God’s movements start and end with the idea of family – connected relationships. God told Abraham, “I will bless you and all the families of the earth will be blessed through your descendants.” (Genesis 22:16-18) God’s plan for growing covenant community (the church) is never separated from bringing blessing to the multiplying relationships our life produces – both naturally and spiritually.
Family is God’s primary idea, not ministry.
Ok, I’ll take it a step further.
Family is God’s primary idea, not the Church - at least not the church operating without the primary metaphor of family. Paul said, “When I think of this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth takes its name.” (Ephesians 3:15). Jesus’ Church is the representation of God’s covenant family as it walks in it’s destiny to honor our Father in heaven and bless the nations of the earth. God's family is the church. And I want it to grow and multiply on every campus and in every nation.
I look through scripture and I can’t find the word “movement” anywhere. Movement is a word we use to describe what happens when we grow and expand God’s family in the earth as He intended us to.
We believe God is calling us to build church planting movements through evangelism and discipleship. However, we are not wired by God to walk together with people because we share the same ideas and attend the same trainings. We are wired by God to walk with others with whom we share DNA, relational history, and a sense of calling and destiny together. What if you and other students you’re walking with right now on your campus will one day form Paul and Barnabus-type teams to spend two years backpacking the Silk Road, looking for persons of peace, praying for the sick, and proclaiming the message of God’s kingdom?
We mobilize a movement by growing spiritual families with committed relationships. We build churches by growing our relationships. Relationships and family happens by shared DNA, experiencing a sense of shared destiny together, overcoming struggles together, loving each other, and spending time living life together.
We’re not just a movement of student churches. We’re a family. As you make disciples on your campus; as you pray together; as you overcome relational struggles and learn to love each other - you may be building spiritual family you might find yourself walking with for a long time. Let’s talk about growing spiritual family that can grow and multiply and bless the nations. Let’s strengthen our relationships and grow our sense of spiritual family at the center of this movement. The nations await us as we do.
SO… dream big, keep reaching people for Jesus, and let’s grow spiritual family together to bless the nations.
Love,
Erik and Jen
When Students Travel For Jesus
February 9, 2010 by Erik Fish
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When Students Travel For Jesus
9022010
You and your two friends walk on to a campus.
You’re nervous.
You’ve never been here before. You just drove overnight to get to a new campus you felt God putting on your heart.
You pray for God to lead you, but you don’t sense anything yet. After you pray again, you decide to walk around. Suddenly you notice an international student sitting on a bench. For no apparent reason you feel like you should talk to him and ask him if He’s thought about Jesus lately. You strike up a conversation with him. He tells you he had a dream last night about Jesus and prayed for God to bring him people to talk to. He’s pretty amazed. You go out for coffee and talk some more and you pray for him at the end. The following night, you and the team get invited to a BBQ at his apartment where you meet some of his friends. You pray for some people there who have been sick. One of them says they feel drastically better. The following week, some of these friends meet again to discuss the teachings of Jesus with you. Three of the students say they want to follow Jesus. They get baptized in their apartment that night. You prophesy over one of them a vision you saw of them going back to their nation and bringing God’s kingdom there. You start encouraging these new believers over the next couple weeks to keep meeting, worshiping, following Jesus together, and inviting others to experience what they have just experienced with Jesus. You tell them you’ll be in touch and come back to see how they’re doing next month.
Got to move on.
Got to go to other campuses.
They need to hear, too.
It’s exhausting and challenging at times. Other times, you realize you’re having the greatest ride of your life.
The movement is spreading and it’s exciting to be on journey with Jesus.
The last few years, God’s been speaking to multiple students and older mobilizers about a movement of traveling teams, demonstrating God’s kingdom from campus to campus, starting student churches, and going to the nations. This summer, recent graduates are stepping out in faith to follow this leading of God’s Spirit.
Throughout history, God’s purposes have been spread through traveling teams. Adam and Eve were told to fill the earth (which I’m guessing would require a bit of travel). When people stopped spreading out and instead gathered together to build a tower for God, He “nudged” them (to put it politely) to travel again. (Genesis 11). Abraham was called to travel. Jonah had to travel to Ninevah (after a slight detour to visit the inside of a fish). Traveling teams were Jesus’ primary means of mobilizing His kingdom message and spreading His power. Paul and Barnabus, after a season of fasting and prayer, were sent out by the Holy Spirit on the first extended missionary journey recorded in scripture. Most of the letters of the New Testament were written to young church communities that were birthed as a result of their obedience. If there were no traveling teams, there would be no Book of Acts (at least it only be a few chapters long).
St. Patrick traveled throughout Celtic Ireland, starting missional, apostolic prayer communities, sparking a movement that would transform the entire island in two generations. John Wesley and an army of common people rode on horseback to preach the gospel and form people into discipleship communities. On and on, God seems to use people when they travel on these apostolic adventures.
What new chapters in history will Jesus write as students step out in faith to travel?
In five years, what do you want to look back and say you got to be a part of seeing God do?
Are you willing to take a risk?
Are you willing to travel?
Do you sense God saying, “Go?”
Will you go?
For those among the student churches and prayer communities who see a strong opening from the Lord to start businesses or embark on other careers, will you support a team of recent graduates from the movement as they spend a year traveling campuses, demonstrating God’s kingdom, building up student churches, and starting new simple church communities on campuses?
Three years ago I was sitting in a prayer room, frustrated with the status quo of “ministry as usual”. I was thinking about quitting the ministry, but desperately praying for God to show me what He was doing. That day I had a vision. I saw a movement of young people traveling from campus to campus and I saw the words, “Student Church.”
The last year, Jen and I and our friends, Ryan and Lindsay, stepped out to take some traveling journeys. We believe this was a simple act of faith to obey what God is starting to say to hundreds if not thousands of young people who will go from campuses to the nations on great adventures with Jesus.
Recently I was talking with Brad McKoy, one of the Student Church national elders. Here is what he told me:
There is such a sense of God’s timing as we pray and begin preparing to send out apostolic teams to travel from campus to campus to make disciples and catalyze student churches. The Lord has been speaking to students, intercessors and mobilizers about this for a long time.
Almost 5 years ago, Adriane and I were on vacation in Michigan and stopped for lunch in Ann Arbor. During lunch (at a sweet Mongolian BBQ) I had to run back a few blocks to the car and plug the meter. As I dropped the coin into the meter, the Holy Spirit started “downloading” a vision/ strategy of sending teams of students to travel through specific regions and around the nation.
These teams of 3 or 4 would go to a campus and find that people had been praying for God to move on their campus. They would partner with these students in preaching the Good News of Jesus, making disciples and planting new churches on the campus. Eventually, these initial teams trained others to replace them and a continuos cycle of travling apostolic teams saturated the campuses of the nation. Within a year of the initial teams starting there was a net of student led curches across the nations. Soon, teams of musicians, artist, story-tellers formed “specialized teams” that traveled to these churches and took the excellence of the Kingdom into college town bars, clubs and galleries. There were also teams that focused on equipping these new churches in specific areas like healing and deliverance.
The whole download lasted only 3 to 4 minutes but I have never been able to fully describe the details of it in less than 45 minutes. I started calling what the Lord had shown me as “The Ann Arbor Initiative” and felt like the Lord told me that our time with the interns in Lawrence was a seed that was a part of bringing that vision about.
My heart is filled with expectation and with the fear of the Lord as consider what it looks like for our student church family to send out these traveling teams. When the Lord reveals similar things to multiple people, it can help provide a sense of context and connection for what He is about to do. Let’s press into this together and trust our Father to pour out His Kingdom as sons and daughters spread his love from campus to campus.
– Brad McKoy
I believe now is the hour for this vision to come to pass.
We believe it is of utmost importance for the teams that travel to walk in these guiding values:
- The Father’s Heart
God is our loving Father. He’s a really good daddy who cares about you and your hearts’ desires. We don’t have to travel or give or perform or preach or heal or fast or do any other earthly thing to earn His love. He’s pleased when we obey. But we obey because He’s our father and He loves us… not to earn His love.
He’s in a good mood.
And He not only loves us, He likes us. He enjoys watching us dance and play and dream, and travel and write and sing and pursue the dreams of our heart.
Oh, and He’s also not super-anal about us making mistakes or not getting things right the first time. If we fail and stumble, He’ll pick us up and teach us to do better next time.
- Jesus’ Passion for God’s house to be a house of prayer for all nations
This is about the lost. It’s about the nations. It’s about going to those who probably won’t come to Christian meetings and churches, not attracting Christians who already go to church. It’s about loving God and others. It’s about seeing every corner of the earth experience God’s love, from the temporary back alleys of the working class neighborhoods of Dubai to the trash dumps orphaned children in India call home; from the halls of Wall Street to the dorms of Ivy League universities, the name of Jesus will be known and glorified and His freedom, healing, forgiveness, dominion, and love experienced in all nations.
- The Power of the Holy Spirit.
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be My witnesses…”
“Eagerly desire the gifts of the Holy Spirit…”
You might notice something interesting if you read the book of Acts. It’s the only narrative account of what the early Jesus movement (the church) looked like. And there were lots of miracles and crazy–sounding Holy Spirit encounters going on. People got healed. People got demons cast out of them. Churches started next to pagan temples. People traveled and got dreams and visions from God to lead them. If Paul and Peter and Barnabus (and Jesus, for that matter) were traveling today, they’d maybe get labeled by religious people as heretics or discounted as crazy charismatics. We hunger for the power of God’s Spirit more than we’re afraid of looking silly. We eagerly desire for God to do more and more of these things today. And we’re not afraid to step out in faith and try. And try again. And try again.
- We’re a Family, not just a movement.
We are not just a movement; we’re growing as a family. A movement without spiritual moms and dads would leave behind spiritual orphans. Church planting isn’t just a bunch of theories and principles. There must be spiritual moms and dads ready to love and serve a generation of youth taking on the Goliath’s of our age; ready to cry with you if things go badly; ready to celebrate with you as you encounter God and eternally transform lives on your journeys. God is into family. His plan for filling the earth started with a family. As the movement grows, and as you travel and support your friends who do, we must love each other like family.
We live in one of the most exciting hours in human history. I pray what God is doing on the campuses and the youth will spread to every nation in our generation!
For those who are sensing God’s call to travel, we’re going to start praying weekly. I’m recommending we gather together in the summer for a time of prayer, fun, and seeking God together before we hit the road in the Fall.
Start talking and praying about what God is calling you to after graduation. Who knows, you might end up leading a team of students on a backpacking trip in the next year through the Himalayas, healing the sick, finding persons of peace, and writing a “book of Acts-type” chapter for a people group that is yet to hear the name of Jesus.
You may one day look back and say it all started with you answering that burning desire in your heart to “go”.
Jesus may your kingdom come to every campus, city and nation in our lifetime!
- Erik Fish
5 Steps to Starting Student Churches
January 31, 2010 by Erik Fish
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After returning last week from a month-long trip in Central America, I noticed the above ad at the top of the mountain of mail awaiting our attention. It was advertising a "new church" was starting in town. (I covered up the church's name at the top).
The print quality was high. The layout had a good marketing appeal. The words on the back advertised that the pastor would tell jokes in his sermon. The wording appealed to disenfranchised former church goers.
This ad struck me as a great example of the contrast between consumer-oriented church planting in the States (Great services...Great advertising...Come be with us on Sunday morning!) and some basic principles we see laid out in scripture for going to non-Christians, preaching the gospel, looking for persons of peace, and making disciples among the lost (with new churches the result of making new disciples).
To be clear, I believe God uses everything, and he will use almost any well-meaning act of faith to bring the gospel to a city. However, there's got to be a simpler way for everyday people to bring the gospel and grow Christian communities in the areas where non-Christians do life together.
As a reminder, I'm posting a simple 5 Step Church Planting Strategy given by my good friend, Dr. Pam, from All Nations Family.
Dr. Pam has planted multiple reproducing churches in, let's just say, "some not so safe environments" over the last 15 years. (Check out her profile on studentchurch.org). She has become a mentor and coach to several students who are now growing simple churches on university campuses in the States and overseas. May this encourage you to reach your campus with the gospel!
A successful strategy for those growing student churches should be biblical and simple.
We have formulated it in five easy to follow steps:
Pray - Meet - Make - Gather - Multiply
Pray. Pray fervently with God's heart for the people you are reaching out to. Pray to meet people by "divine appointments." Pray until you can weep over people. Pray fervently. Fast and pray. Walk and pray. Ask God to let you see what he sees and feel what he feels. It is in the place of prayer that God will reveal the unfulfilled purposes and broken covenants for the people you are reaching. Pray for a man or woman of peace to open the door the hearts and minds of people you are reaching. Pray for understanding and love of the culture. Pray for the word of the Lord to guide you and give you specific strategies to make disciples, train leaders and plant a church planting movement.
Meet. Meet people where they are. Hang out with those who don't know Jesus. Get outside the Christian bubble. Resist the temptation and emotional need to focus on teams issues that absorb your time and energy. As you pray, trust God to give you strategies for meeting people. Begin to build a network of relationships, what the Bible calls an oikos (literally a household). This network is the beginning of your future church plant. This network of relationships will become the future support system for those who accept Christ if they are disenfranchised by their family and friends. Build this network in faith that it will become a church for God in that place.
Make. Make Disciples. Invest in people's lives. Don't wait for them to pray a prayer to accept Jesus or say they want to follow Jesus to invest in them as people. Disciple making is another way of describing evangelism, and of building meaningful relationships. As you build those relationships, seek to discern what God has in his heart for each person.
Jesus commanded us to make disciples. Disciple making is about introducing people to Jesus in such a way that they get to know him personally, and then learn to love and obey him. When it's the right time, teach people the seven commands of Jesus:
repent and believe
be baptized
forgive
give
pray
gather with others
make disciples of all nations
Do not hesitate to tell new believers the cost of following Jesus. Emphasize the privilege of going to other nations so God's mission is part of their spiritual DNA.
Gather. Gather those you meet who are spiritually open with other seekers for fun, hanging out, enjoying common interests, prayer, and study of God's word. Focus on the words and stories of Jesus. Don't wait for them to say they want to become a follower of Jesus to gather people into a community of friends. Gathering around a meal with others is one of the best ways to build community. Jesus said that where two or three gather in his name, he is with them. This is "church" in it's simplest, most essential form. Nothing more is needed to "be church." There is more that can be done to contribute to growing a healthy, vibrant church (see Acts 2:42-47), but gathering people together is the beginning of planting that church.
Multiply. Plan for growth. From the beginning, train new believers to take responsibility for your meetings and outreaches. Stay in the background as much as possible to encourage others to grow and exercise their spiritual gifts. As soon as you reach 15-20 people, multiply. Start a new gathering. Give those you have been investing in assignments that will help you discern their giftings, strengths, and weaknesses. Build the community from the beginning, just like Paul did, by facilitating the development of indigenous leadership.
Let's practice these five simple steps (pray-meet-make-gather-multiply) to see the gospel transform the lives of students and spread from campuses to the nations!