Growing in the Prophetic: A Practical Biblical Guide to Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Gifts by Mike Bickle

Author:Mike Bickle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Prophecy - Christianity, Christian Life, General, Religion, Prophecy, Christianity, Spiritual Growth, Pentecostal & Charismatic
ISBN: 9781599793122
Publisher: Charisma House
Published: 1995-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Pastors and Prophets: Getting Along in the Kingdom

The prophetic ministry in the local church functions in an “orderly freedom” only when both the pastors and the congregation have a common understanding of how things should work. It is important for unity and peace that the church understands how the prophetic ministry functions. The principles for nurturing and administrating prophetic ministry need to be understood not only by pastors and prophets, but also by the majority of the congregation.

One of the reasons I agreed to write this book was to fill the need for a unified, systematic teaching on the prophetic that could be available to our church body. We’ve had new people join our church over the last years who have not understood the basic principles written in this book. It doesn’t seem edifying to repeat continually these principles to the church because the body then becomes too focused on the prophetic. My plan is to ask the new members to read this book so we all have the same understanding.

Non-Prophet Leadership

Some people are surprised that I can be the pastor and overseer of prophetic people without being prophetically gifted myself. This misunderstanding has occurred numerous times. Often as a guest speaker I have been encouraged by pastors to “take my liberty.” By that they meant I should feel free to single out people in the congregation and give them personal prophetic words from the Lord. When I tell them I don’t usually prophesy over people, they often think I am just being falsely humble.

On several occasions I’ve had to insist, “Listen guys, I’m not joking. I am not a prophet.” Some pastors are surprised by this, and some are disappointed. They were hoping to see a spectacular manifestation of God’s power when I preached at their churches.

I have had private conversations with many wonderful pastors who were frustrated because they were not able to move in spiritual gifts as freely as some of the people in their congregation. Often, some of these prophetic-type people in the church are spiritually immature in other ways. Pastors feel insecure, thinking that these folks are apparently more “in tune with the Spirit” than they are. Consequently they feel too intimated to correct such prophetically gifted people.

As much as the prophetic ministry has found expression at Metro Christian in Kansas City, I seldom prophesy, and even then there is no “thus saith the Lord” tagged on for emphasis. If I have something I feel is from the Lord, it will usually come out in my preaching and teaching without my mentioning it as a prophetic word. While some feel pressure to sound more spiritual because of their leadership position, I am careful to tone down any appearance of prophetic giftings because ofmy position as senior pastor of the church.

When pastors realize that I am a pastor/teacher with very limited prophetic giftings, their response is often something like this: “I never realized you could have this kind of thing happening in your church and

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