Freeing My Mind

So I’m in full sprint mode getting ready to leave for a ministry trip tomorrow. If your a Mississippi reader, make sure to come see us. You can find all the info here. Seeing that I’m crazy busy, I don’t have time for a full blog today. Instead I want to share with you guys the outcome of our labor in planning Create and Cultivate, I blogged about yesterday. We have a full site up, but I’m copying an email that went out to our email list for you guys to see. It might be boring for some, but hopefully this can help get the word out. My blogs will probably be shorter and more scarce for the next few days, but something will go up. Much love to you all.

Hey everyone, I want to announce a brand new initiative that we are launching for 2010. In all sincerity, this is the most exciting project that I have in my heart right now. I will attach one of my most recent blog posts at the bottom of this email that will give you the full back-story, but let’s just get right to it.  – Craig

“Create & Cultivate” has been birthed out of an ongoing season of restructuring and change that Awake International has been experiencing during 2009. Due to this metamorphosis, we are shifting our focus from many different ministries, conferences and churches over the course of a year to focusing on a few on an ongoing basis. Craig and Lori, along with their team and interns, want to form partnerships with local churches and ministries in order to help those communities in their mandate to foster a culture where the supernatural is a way of life, honor and family is the foundation of church life, grace and love is the power behind outreach and the release of destiny and gifting in order to make true disciples.

Before discussing details concerning Create & Cultivate, we feel that it is important to define our definition of “local church”.

local church: A family of Jesus followers who have ongoing relationship with one another in a specific geographic region. They work together in order to esteem each other, release people into their destinies and establish God’s kingdom within their local community.

*If you would rather read the information from the Create & Cultivate site, feel free to do so, but all of the information is here as well.

What are the principles associated with Awake International and the Create & Cultivate initiative?

. Above all, love. We believe that a culture of love is the key to lasting effectiveness within local church life and the power behind outreach to your community.

. The life of Jesus. We have much to learn from how Jesus lived His life while on the earth and that way of life is the way of life we strive to both live and teach.

. The voice of God. Hearing the voice of God is essential for our lives and ministry. While abuses and wackiness within the prophetic have destroyed many churches, our belief is that when the heart of the prophetic is understood and implemented it can be life altering for many local bodies.

. Reaching out. People are not meant to be projects for evangelism and evangelism is not meant to be a sales pitch. Reaching the people around us should be a way of life and not a means to an end. Creating a culture where your communities are consistently being affected by the Kingdom of God is easier than some think.

. True discipleship. As the body of Christ, our mandate is not to tell people who to be, but to create an atmosphere where the nature of Christ unlocks dreams and destinies. This creates a body where “every part does its share” and they love it! Helping bring people into maturity is the goal.

. The supernatural. The supernatural can actually be very natural for a local church and doesn’t have to cause division and flakiness. The problems arise when the miraculous itself becomes the goal instead of part of the lifestyle.

. Family. The family structure created by God is the lifeblood of the local church, not only in the traditional sense, but also when the entire church feels and acts like a family.

. Leadership. Our goal is to help foster true leaders and a leadership culture based on honor and love. One man and one woman can’t do it. It takes people who know their gifts and are positioned in places where those gifts and callings can flourish.

. Worship. Worship is not music, but music can most certainly be worship. Worship is our creative expression of love to God. Our desire is to help cultivate a creative atmosphere where worship takes a whole new meaning.

. Reformation. The foundation of Awake International is reform. We want to always be willing to learn, admit mistakes and grow. This applies both to our personal lives and the lives of churches. We believe that God is breathing new life into the church and that it requires significant change.

. God is in control. While the basis of Create & Cultivate may be considered apostolic in nature, our goal is not to control your church. We are not creating a new hiearchy. Instead, we want to come beside you, not for our gain, but for yours. We want to form an ongoing relationship with you.

What type of local body are we looking for?

. Existing churches and ministries who connect with the above principles of Awake International and desire growth that comes through these principles.

. Brand new local churches.

. Ministries that are looking to begin to function as a local church.

In a general sense, what does partnering with Create & Cultivate consist of?

. We strive to not create structure and try to fit people in it, but rather to create structure around people. That being the case, we will tailor what we do to fit each individual church. Although, the foundation is applicable to all.

. Craig and Lori, along with their team will visit each church at least one time every other month. These visits will vary in length according to the need. More than likely, creative events will be held during the visit in order to bring the community together for training, equipping, worship and outreach. You are not alone in planning these events. We will work with you in planning each event. Each event will build upon the last in an ongoing effort to continue to cultivate your church’s specific growth.

. These events may include, but are not limited to: Extended mini-schools which deal with various topics associated with the Create & Cultivate mandate (such as our School of Prophetic Awakening), conference and training events which may include some of our other friends in ministry, outreach training and releasing, and worship/arts seminars.

. If so desired, we will also help in either launching or growing your entire multimedia infrastructure. In case you didn’t know, podcasts, social networking, iAnything, internet videos and the like are not a fad. They are a fundamental shift in our society.

. We believe the key to a healthy church, is a healthy leadership. Craig will meet with your leadership on an ongoing basis in order to pray for them and to foster their own destiny and growth.

. Question and answer sessions. We believe it is important to not just tell you things, but to find out what is on your heart. One of the ways we can do this through question and answer sessions. These times are more like discussions concerning the thoughts and concerns of your people.

. The core leadership of the church will have an ongoing relationship with Craig and Lori outside of these events. Through phone, email or any other technology, we want to communicate with you throughout the year and beyond.

. Core leadership will also have an open invitation to visit us at our base in Moravian Falls, North Carolina. We will provide lodging in the mountains in order to give you time to rest, reflect, pray and just get away.

. During the months where we do not personally visit you, we will be making videos to help keep in touch with you and your church. These will be available to you online and for download.

If you have any questions, would like more information or would like to talk more with us about the possibility of your church being a part of this opportunity, please email us at createandcultivate@awake.org

I would like to personally reiterate my commitment and desire to not only this initiative, but to you as leadership and to your church. I believe this is a mandate for us from God. I believe that He has given us an enormous amount of grace for this and I could not be more excited. Even if you don’t know much about Awake International or me, I would encourage you to pray and consider this opportunity. I believe there is destiny all over it. Again, my desire is not to control anything, but rather to help. I want to esteem you and see the best for you and your community. I love you all so much. – Craig Kinsley

Recently, I had an experience while I was praying. In a vision, I saw a series of images that I knew to be of the early church. Around about the time of the first apostles. Seeing as how what I saw was fairly abstract, it would be difficult for me to explain exactly what I saw. It was more that God was securing within me a small understanding of various aspects of the way they lived their lives. If you think about it, it’s amazing how affective they were considering the circumstances. You had a small band of people, round about 120, that really began the whole thing. Within one day that number grew to thousands and within months and years multiples of thousands. In the natural realm, the odds were stacked against them. The current religious structure, which the Jewish Christians were still a part of, was so threatened by the meteoric growth of the Church that many followers began dying for their new found faith. From what we know, considering the lives of the core believers, there wasn’t a lot of money to go around in an offering plate on Sunday mornings. In fact their didn’t even seem to be an offering plate. There also wasn’t a Sunday morning gathering. (Unlike some, I’m not opposed to the idea of Sunday morning gatherings, I’m just pointing it out.) The early Church existed as a body stretched out over various aspects of society. It was an organic life form that couldn’t be nailed down. They were actually as Jesus described, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:3 I’ve received this question numerous times, “Craig, are you against organized religion?” My response has always been the same, yes and no. On the “no” front: The Kingdom of God is very organized. There is no chaos and every part and member of His Kingdom has a part and a place. On the other hand, I am against the organization of God’s Kingdom taking a worldly form. When the structure with which we house the Church becomes so concrete that we, as the wind of the Spirit, cease to be able to blow, then that structure has become a hindrance to the Children of the Spirit being able to actually LIVE.

This vision that I had, has led be to begin to actually consider completely new ways of structuring how we as the Church function. As always, I believe some of my ideas might be a little ahead of their time, but I also believe some of them to be much needed right now. Consider me personally and Awake International as a ministry. When I went from focusing my life in ministry from a local church to traveling, I simply took a copy of the current structure that I knew of and applied that. Through various relationships in the ministry world  and previous exposure that I had been given, I was able to just sit back and wait for ministries and churches to invite me in. It was really a miracle. No one knew who I was really, only that I was associate with other more recognized faces. At the time, I was only 22 years old. Definitely one of the youngest people within my stream to be in full-time itinerant ministry. All of that and I was near completely booked for my first year. The next three to four years were the same. We had our ups and downs, but God was consistently blessing us and we were always busy and moving forward. Although, throughout those 4 years things began to change. Not around us, but within us. People have always commented to me how their seems to be such a “spirit of acceleration” over my life. I would have to agree, but I will also say that at times it doesn’t seem like such a great thing. Now, I am at a place where I’ve become a completely different person than I was 4 years ago. I’ve grown, changed and changed some more. It’s been such a short time and yet I feel like it’s been a lifetime. I feel so far removed, in a good way, from the person who I was and the places that I thought I was going. God has reformed me to the point that I am unrecognizable to the Craig of four years ago. So, here I am, barely six years in and I feel like I’m going through a mid-ministry crisis.

My structure is broken. One of my dear friends and board members made a comment recently. They said, “Craig, you’ve changed. God is doing complete new and different things within you and through you. You are no longer simply a part of what we think of as the charismatic church and you definitely don’t belong within the main-stream church. You’re not in between, your into something brand new.” God really has surrounded me with some amazing people. The structure that I had once copied was built for a certain sect of the Church and it works in a very specific way. What God is beginning to do within our whole ministry is now bucking that structure. I didn’t set out to do that, but I am. I don’t think it’s that where we are going is too controversial, that hasn’t been my experience at all, but rather that I’m taking a new approach while many are continuing in the same direction. Is my direction right and their’s wrong? Not necessarily, it’s simply where God is taking me.

With all of that being said, to all my friends in the charismatic movement, I’m not breaking up with you. That’s not the point of this post. The point is to let you guys in on a new approach that we’re taking for next year. During all of this contemplating and studying about the early church, had me thinking of Paul. One of the aspects of his life that has recently inspired me, is the fact that he not only planted churches, but these churches were an actual family to him. He kept in constant contact and as difficult as travel was, he made it there way as often as he could. In February of this year, I traveled to my home town in Mississippi to do my prophetic school. This was my first time doing my thing down there since I was an associate pastor some five years ago. I was pretty nervous going in. It is my hometown after all and I have quite a history with my home town. It was seriously an incredible time. I was blown away. Not just concerning the attendance or the dynamics of the meetings, but it was the people. They weren’t just listening to what I had to say, but they were investing their lives in what I had to say. This wasn’t just a conference, but a people asking for help. That weekend, I decided that I would return there every other month until the end of this year. In fact on Wednesday I am leaving to go back for the 4th time. What has been so amazing about these trips, is that each return trip I find a culture that has been affected by my last trip. One of my greatest frustrations in ministry, is either going to a place and never really knowing if anything stuck or worse, returning to a place and realizing that nothing stuck.

So, I’ve decided to take this model and to try and apply it to various other locations next year. I would like to have at least 4 different cities that I return to at least every other month for the entire span of 2010. The purpose of these trips is not simply to hold conferences, but to help the leaders there to form a new culture, to ignite passion and bring needed refreshing and even restructuring to that ministry/church’s current structure. I know that there are churches and ministries out there who’s hearts connect with our philosophy of internal reformation and supernatural love being the answer that our communities are looking for. I want to be able to stand with these cities and ministries on an ongoing basis, more of a family than a traditional ministry relationship. I want to be able to pour my soul into these places to see cultural transformation and spiritual reformation. We are calling this initiative, “Create and Cultivate”.  So, now I am going to use my blog to shamelessly advertise. If you would like more information on how this would work, just email us at booking@awake.org, send me a Facebook message or even just comment on this blog.

Does this post seem too personal? Welcome to my sect.

my favorite frank sinatra song, be inspired