Tis the season to try not to be a work a holic: SPIRITUAL PIONEER BLOG

Welcome to my SPIRITUAL PIONEER blog which is all about us sharing a journey together about what it is to pioneer and rebrand Christianity. I am going to try and be vulnerable about my own journey in planting a ministry base and also local church in Los Angeles. My hope is that I can begin to communicate to other pioneers and we can share our struggles and joys whether you are in the South, in Canada, across the Ocean, live around Los Angeles, or even in Hollywood. Feel free to comment and ask Questions. As always if you have something extremely negative to say feel free to private email me instead of posting message.

A funny thing happened on the way to the club where we have our church on Sunday mornings….(we call the children’s room “the Love Lounge” because it’s so skanky but its been a good temporary place). I had gone to Disneyland the day before with some friends (Props to Trish, Cherie, Heather, Scottie, and my Sister Jennifer…I was heavily outnumbered by estrogen) and I found out I was speaking that night….oops. That means by 10PM I had to spend limited time with God to figure out what I was supposed to speak on which I hate to do! I like to know the Monday before and then every day pray into and figure it out, especially when I am not just doing one of my old life messages but building into the season we are in. I switched topics about fifteen times and even considered the fact that the church is down in giving by about $10,000 this month because of recession in LA (the end of the year has about killed us financially but we are winning the war in our hearts). I knew that wasn’t the right thing to touch on especially because our people are givers and don’t need extra Christmas pressure.

Then finally, as often happens, God dropped the beginning of a message in me like the first line in a book. “A Father’s role is not to establish your purpose and vision for you, but to provide an environment where he helps you identify who you are and then brings boundaries with you to protect your journey of exploration into your own truth about that. He is supposed to allow you to be a visionary and dreamer, not substituting his dreams for yours but actually dreaming with you your dreams and making sure to help guide you in priorities in finances in family commitments and to stay the course to accomplish your powerful vision and desire.” and I had the scriptures that backed me up…so cool! I went to bed excited even though I only had that much thinking “I will spend time in the morning with Jesus and get the rest…this is good!”



Then I woke up and realised I had set my alarm for PM not AM and it was 9AM and I was supposed to be there early to help the team with anything service and I started running around freaking out that I couldn’t find clean socks or an ironed shirt and felt like I was catching the flu (which formed into a full virus in me) and I had lost all the energy that was my message….oops. I got in the car after posting on my facebook my ETA (which included a Starbucks run of course or no one would have wanted to see me…I needed the power of God AND caffeine) and I almost lost my salvation and ministry over an old woman driver in front of me who had forgotten how to drive or never learned in America. Then I FINALLY got on the highway while listening to Christmas music and it occurred to me:

God needs to take us on a journey as a ministry and as a church of really knowing each other. Most of my church team have been involved with other churches for long seasons before us and came with us to LA or transferred too us, my leaders have lead other places, our worship teams have been involved with other worship teams, but we are just now on our own journey of gaining our own identity as a corporate people. That is hard for a group of peops to gain their corporate identity and I realised my message of Fathering wasn’t just a message to empower our peops to do this but it was empowering me to dream with them, to help us establish a corporate identity and know how to really worship together and receive each other. I WAS BECOMING A FATHER FOR THE MINISTRY!

I felt like a Father, but the steps were becoming more clear and simple. Like a few weeks ago I asked people in our regional meeting (still Expression58 but the ministry not the local church..) “How many of you don’t feel known in something that you have maturity or wisdom in that you have been known in somewhere else in the past? In other words how many of you have equity in some area of life but it hasn’t transferred into Los Angeles or into your home church or here at Expression58?”

So many people raised their hands it was wild! So many people felt invisible in some of their strengths and because of not feeling known they were not completely activated. I immediately realised I had a job to create a safe place for people to be known and connect in their lives and ministries. You know an orginization is either held back by its leadership or moved forward by it and I have done both. I realize that to move people into a corporate identity even regionally they have to feel known and we have to learn how to transfer their equity into our organization and relationship structure. In other words if you owned a house and then sold it, you could take your profit or equity with you to purchase the next house. It should be the same in the Kingdom because we are all one organization, the church. We should be the best at receiving each other in strengths, in experience, in talents, in giftings, and in skills. We shouldn’t have hundreds of hoops to jump through before we become a part of relationship even if we do have programs to facilitate this joining like memberships or classes, they should only empower not be a protocol hoop to jump through.

Back to my Sunday morning. So I get their with the realization that I am to Father, and I am thinking: Dear God! I am single with no kids and most of what I have done is on the exotic side of ministry AKA being involved with the prophetic my entire life. Now God is asking me to be a Father in the city and to create Fathers and Mothers of all ages who really understand themselves and are coached into successful love in all areas. Then I remember Jesus was not your average leader in his day either. He was single without kids (props to me for the first time in that regard) and he didn’t spend a lot of time meeting needs but actually was working to bring a Kingdom. He raised up a team around him that had various strengths and passions that could carry the areas he didn’t bring to the table as far as meeting with people, organizing their mission, travel schedule, finances, etc. I started to get courage and so should you! When we pioneer we are so strong even when we are weak when we have (first God) then a team with us because in our weaknesses they are strong! (Not to imply Jesus was weak but he had incredible delegation abilities Matthew 10 as an example).

So I am qualified and so are you to lead even if your life looks different from the average life and we are called to Father (Mother) this generation into becoming the best versions of themselves. Its not about experience (although it helps so much and I can’t wait to have more), its not about whether you are married or single (Its believed even Paul was single), its not about how gifted you are (a big heart can cover up a lot of weakness), but we are qualified to pioneer this new breed of Christianity by a few things:

1) Love for God

2) Love for ourselves and people

3) Willingness, teachability and humility

So that’s it…thats the first blog but I will be writing more soon! In the mean time I would encourage you to read our end of the year report that is in my blog on wordpress, on Facebook in my notes, on our website in the news (www.expression58.org) and other places. If you want to hear the message I did on that Sunday look for it in our free podcast soon.

Signing out… Shawn Bolz

Response to Earthquake warning and disasters in Los Angeles

Response to Earthquake warning and disasters
Posted: March 18, 2011 by shawnbolz in blogging, expression58
Tags: christianinty, disaster response, earthquake, God's judgement, Jim Berkland, prophetic judgement, wrath
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So yesterday I was bombarded by good meaning people (including my mother) who are responding to Jim Berkland who is an Earthquake expert who is predicting another quake here on the west coast (most likely LA) in the next week or so.

I love our family and our crew of friends. Its important that you hear my perspective on these types of issues if you are involved with us because it will help you know how my heart relates to disaster and crises.

I think this is timely information and it is good for us to be aware so we can be prepared but I have a few observations:

1) Humanity was never supposed to experience these disasters so its impossible to be completely prepared for them. Meaning: The Earth was never meant to groan and be dysfunctional but because of the fall it has been a mess. There are whole camps of Christians who overly prepare and have an inordinate focus on this preparation. No one predicted on time the New Orleans Hurricane or the Japan Earthquake….they happened. Preparedness is very important but it can’t be at the expense of peace.

2) The sources (whether prophetic or natural) of prediction are mostly wrong. Jim Berkland (who is the lastest source for the Earthquake in America) has tried to predict Earthquakes for decades and was right within 4 days of the San Francisco quake but that’s because his group has reported the possibility of over 200 Earthquakes…eventually you will get it right even if the public doesn’t look at the hundreds that did not happen. I applaud his efforts because seismology is such an unpredictable field, but the way the media has ran with this is ridiculous.

3) Christians are amazing in the days of adversity because we can move in the compassion of God and care for people that we would normally want to run from or cities we would rather escape from. The modern examples are profound: Haiti, New Orleans, and now Japan, etc have their best relief efforts from Christians. We have been involved in disaster relief, red zone missions, war zone missions, etc and you see Jesus on another whole level when you participate with Heavens solution to these terrible disasters and wars. Just like Doctors in Emergency rooms kick into another gear, Christians have the Spirit of God inside of them and if they are participating with Him they will find themselves capable of amazing heart attitudes and abilities during trauma. Christians who teach that we are to hide away or horde in those days of adversity and trial have a limited theology on the nature of Jesus who came to bring His government of peace and restoration. One of the greatest failures of the Roman Empire in its end was hoarding food, finances, resources, etc. People became so fearful they began to hoard and its proven that most the regions that fell first had the resources to maintain the region but those resources were being held back by Christian (and some none Christian) hoarding leaders.

4) You can prepare in more effective ways then hoarding and seperating. Your local fire department or police stations have programs like C.E.R.T. Which is an emergency disaster preparedness to help your city in times of trial. They are desperate to get churches involved. You can have some of your members become chaplains to police forces, fire depts, sports teams, prisons, so you will have access to disaster relief locations if things do happen, you can find out your cities disaster relief plan for different types of disasters which is public domain….find out the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars your state has put into its disaster plans because America is not as stupid as the news media makes it sound. Find out what has worked in the disasters that your city is threatened with in the past and do basic education. Your average joe doesn’t need to focus on impending doom, but they need to be prepared for potential disasters. You can be part of private and public food banks to find out how to funnel foods to them so that there is an abundance.

5) One of the most important issues: Be part of a Kingdom and relief effort now. If you are becoming fearful about running out of something in the future, be part of your cities solution now and begin to find out the statistics of hunger in your city and become an answer. LA has about 15% malnutrition and we only feed maybe 17,000 meals a day to our poor and homeless population. Our food banks are low on quality food, and we need thousands of pounds of food and water now. If we could make this a well oiled process now we would be WAY ahead if a disaster hit because these food banks which work for the homeless in these days will work for the whole city in disaster days. In New Orleans, our friends Blood and Fire were feeding like 3500+ meals a day to relief workers and it was because they were already feeding people before that so it was easy to jump into helping. Bottom line is Christians can be ridiculous at hoarding resources when in a city like ours (LA) there isn’t enough food being stored for our current food crises right now. Be a part of healing your current food crises in your city and you will begin to understand how to handle a disaster (there is probably one already going on but its covered up by normalness). PS this is one of the areas that the Obama administration shines because they are amazing at disaster plans and social justice.

6) Modern History proves that disasters have not grown the church. The churches get full for a few weeks after, but its the goodness of God and the Kingdom of life that make people want to stay involved in their faith. I remember these Christians who were like “Katrina will force revival, New Orleans will know they have to turn to God now.” But you know what? Although God moves powerfully in peoples hearts when they are in disaster, it is not a healthy thing to say “This is the revival agent we have been waiting for!” The reality is all of Africa is in disaster all the time that is like in the days that most Christians think the end times will look like. Africa’s revival is not in response to its destruction, it is in response to seeing there is a GOOD GOD who restores all things and gives purpose beyond human survival. We have unrealistic expectations as western world Christians that think when it gets worse around us the church will grow and that God needs us to suffer in order to apprehend us. This hasn’t worked for Africa and its not the solution for America, humans do good when the original plan of God is at work: Peace, rest, love, life, goodness, fulfillment, these draw people into eternity more then destruction because they feel like eternity.

I like what Joe from my facebook friend status said: Jesus paid the price for the sins of the world and the Father is not imputing the world’s trespasses against them, why do some insist that the physical calamities our God’s judgments? Too many think God’s dealings with us are based on the Law, not on the grace of God in Christ. Or Bill Johnson: The insurance companies blame a lot of bad things on a good God.

7) You are part of the solution that the world is waiting for….Romans 8 says the whole earth is groaning that sons of God would be revealed because what happened when Jesus came? He brought the potential to restore all things. He started His whole ministry with Luke 4:18 which was to bring GOOD NEWS! Wow what a concept that we are supposed to bring good news even in the day of adversity like He was in…..it was a bad day when He came but He showed a GOOD God!

I love you guys and I love my city. I am here for my city when it is doing well or when it is suffering like right now……LA is at a terrible crises of hunger, 20% child homelessness, 10,000 slaves, 80,000 homeless adults, 2000 people being released from prison every night, 18% unemployment, and we have many other problems. An Earthquake is not going to bring revival, we are. We want to stand with our city in the day of adversity and love our city, not pull away and hoard resources because of weird prophetic perspectives that come from bad theology. Any word that makes you feel separate from the city you live in is not from the heart of God.

Lots of love

Shawn Bolz

Expression58

www.expression58.org