baylight church community

A recoding of the spiritual DNA of baylight

God has been doing something here over the last two months.   This past Sunday I brought out into the open some of the changes we’re observing.  For those of you who missed, I wanted to put a summary up here for you because it is important for us to be on the same page.

1.) False assumption #1 that God is resetting:  that God doesn’t speak to us all the way down here from all the way up there.

  a. examples listed – one LTG that spent 2.5 hours in prayer together — much of it listening — and is considering spiritually mapping the city where many of them work or live.  Another LTG listened for what items to get at Safeway for a family in need, trusting that God would tell them specific things to buy; God not only revealed things unknown to them (e.g., country music, diabetes, etc.) but brought them almost exactly to their budgeted total.  Several people have been hearing God tell them to give money to various people, and they are obeying!  

 There is a new hope in our midst as people are hearing from God and beginning to ask, “Why wouldn’t that be God?”  And God is answering.  We are becoming a hear and obey church.

2.) False assumption #2 that God is resetting:  that the supernatural doesn’t happen here and now in our lives.

  a. examples listed – personal breakthroughs in experiencing freedom from years of bondage, the breakthroughs in relationships with not-yet-Christian friends who would never go near a church, people walking into new and latent spiritual gifts of prayer languages, prophecy, and faith, people are obeying Scripture and praying for the sick and seeing them get healed.  

 There is a new openness to what God can do, and people are following through on it in faith and obedience and seeing God move right before our eyes.  We are becoming EYEWITNESSES to the power of God — not just hearers of other people’s stories.  The veil is thinning between the natural and supernatural at b.c.c.

3.) False assumption #3 that God is resetting:  that God primarily works through formally trained or recognized Christian leaders.

  a. examples listed – Our experimentation over the last few months of spontaneously following the lead of the Spirit and seeing the Spirit teach, influence and show us things through [non-staff] baylight people’s giftings as well as struggles that are current and authentic.   The church is the healthiest it has been and [shhhh...] not had much formal preaching on Sunday!  The best example of this: Miriam and Alissa leading us into the heart of God on human trafficking Sunday.   We are learning the truth of the indispensability of each body part (1 Corinthians 12), and seeing many people contribute in all our gatherings– big to small. 

We are rediscovering the “priesthood of all believers” that got air time in the Protestant Reformation but quickly faded by the replacing of popes and cardinals with clergy and pastoral staff.  A new time is dawning here at baylight where the most influential people are no longer the staff, Church Oversight Team, or LTG leaders; the most influential people are those who walk with God, hear from him, and take radical steps of faith and obedience.  

Frankly, I am shocked at how quickly this change has happened and how wide-spread it is.   And I wonder aloud with all of you the following questions:

Why is God unlocking all this now?   And where is God taking us?

The oversight team is asking these questions now as we seek to understand God’s initiative and direction. Please join with us in pondering these questions, and when you hear something from God on any of these fronts, please share it with one of us immediately.  I believe that many of your lives and the decisions you will be making this season will unfold the answers for the above.  You have been and will remain an intricate part of the surprising and unfolding story happening here at baylight.

Thank you for journeying patiently with us.  We recognize it has not always been a stable or a comfortable ride, and that many things you may have held dearly have been challenged in this period of deconstruction. But the good news is that we are in a period of reconstruction now, and if these last two months are any indication of what’s ahead, then WOW, it’s going to be a fun ride. 

Looking forward to an awesome year with you.

Your happy scribe of God’s workings, Mike