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11/11/2007

Sloshed in the U.K., Harvest Glory hits the Streets By John Crowder

I have just returned from England and Wales where we saw firstfruits of a massive explosion of harvest the Lord is beginning to release on the streets. There was also a tremendous weight of Glory on the meetings as our European associates, Emerge Wales, hosted "Slosh Fest," a time of experiencing the drunken bliss of Jesus!

Prior to Sloshie, we ventured to Bristol for three days of wildfire gatherings. I must say that the week was a blur. There was a deep realm of divine ecstasy that opened during the gatherings. Many were equipped and activated in the supernatural, along with a powerful release of prophetic revelation.
Thirty Saved in the Marketplace
We brought a team of crazies out on the streets for an afternoon of fishing in Bristol, home base of the great revivalist John Wesley. The culture of the U.K. may be known for its reserved demeanor, but the people are hungry and the harvest is ripe! We took a dozen ecstatic drinkers with us onto Queen Street and had a Holy Ghost party. Bodies started to hit the pavement, with men and women shaking and convulsing powerfully under the heavy weight of the Glory. It did not take long for a crowd to gather. I felt the Lord say, "Don't think about harvest; think about me!" The more I got hammered at the thought of Jesus, the more drunk I got, and the more people stopped to watch us. We led 30 people to Christ in just two hours because of the crazy drunken bliss in the streets!

Mass Glory Outbreaks on the Streets
There is a harvest Glory being released in this day, which makes evangelism not a task but a delight. We will just float down the street in the Glory, and the little fishies will jump into our boats! Going to the streets and the marketplace becomes an addiction for those who begin to taste this harvest Glory. We long to offer Jesus every delicacy – to give him the sweet fruit of intimacy, but also the fields of harvest.The hearts of lovers must carry their bliss to the extreme. This love will drive us to bring in the harvest, even at the cost of our lives. The wine of heaven enables a supernatural boldness and freedom from the fear of man. This joy is also called the spirit of a martyr. You don't have to get killed to have this spirit! But you will get blissed!

While on the streets, I led six teenagers to the Lord simultaneously in one prayer. We prayed for a woman in a wheelchair with vertebrae problems, and she felt fire run up her spine. After a word of knowledge, both she and her daughter received the Lord. Some people came forward for prayer, but when we laid hands on them, they felt God's presence and ran off shrieking! A policeman came by to investigate what was going on, with all of the dropped and twitching bodies, screams and laughter. We told him we were praying for people, but when we asked him if he wanted prayer, he ran off and one of the team members chased him down the street!

The key to harvest evangelism is to get blasted in the Spirit and enjoy it! We sometimes bring teams onto the streets with no program or plan in mind. Prophetic evangelism, dream interpretation and other revelatory-based efforts are wonderful. But when we just get whacked in the Spirit, with bodies falling over, shaking and drinking heavily, it seems that God's Glory gets the job done just as easily! Suddenly crowds start to appear, amazed not just at the craziness, but at the obvious fun we are having. Our lives have been laid down, in that we no longer care about the opinions of man. Seeing the joyful manifestations, people start to come up to us and say, "Do that to me!"
Harvesting Lovers
Some try to offer the Lord a harvest in immaturity, and they bear little fruit. True maturity is to get possessed by the Spirit. We are matured by the bliss, and when our joy is ripe it explodes out of us in heart-felt devotion for the world to see. If evangelism seems difficult for you – if it still feels like a dry duty – you are probably still doing it out of obligation or striving for acceptance. You may want to stop altogether for a while and just drink the love of Jesus! When you drink enough, it will eventually spill out. The love will need an escape valve! And a drunken man will do and say things that a sober man will not. If your sacrifice is a work of duty, you must return to the place of pleasure! Then harvest will come as an overflowing work of love. We labor in the fields as a blissful byproduct of our unconditional acceptance.

"God wants you to be a lover. And He wants you to be a working lover. Who you are is the lover, and what you do is the work. You are not to be only a worker who struggles to love God. Instead, you are a lover of God," writes Mike Bickle in The Pleasures of Loving God. "Being lovers is our very identity. It's who we are. We are lovers of God who happen to work, not the other way around. … God wants us to be relationally oriented first, and achievement oriented second."

Our identity – lovers of God – supersedes our actions – fulfilling the Great Commission, etc. Moreover, until we become who we are, we can never fulfill what we've been called to do.

When we get blasted in the love of God, things start to happen around us. Our intimate relationship with God should not be sectioned off from the rest of our lives and cloistered into the prayer closet. God wants to invade the fabric of our lifestyle with the enjoyment of His presence. Actions and fruitfulness are byproducts of a lifestyle of intimacy.

The Great Commission is about to move from a paradigm of work and sacrificial labor to a response of lovesick bridal devotion. There is a place of love that reclines under the apple tree, but there is also an intensity of love that can literally drive us to do great exploits. The apostle Paul said, "The love of Christ compels us …" (2 Cor. 5:14). We literally become love slaves, compelled and driven by a loving passion that burns like fire in our bones. When this is real, and not feigned by a religious spirit, then it becomes contagious. The world is hungry for pure, abandoned pleasure! Stop striving. Stop twisting people's arms to get saved! Get whacked and just watch the little fishies jump into your boat!

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