Mike McLoughlin's Blog

When Heaven Invades Earth Twenty Four Seven! Grounding the Charismatic Hope in the Resurrection.

Mike McLoughlin — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 11:10:43 -0700

My pastor was preaching last Sunday on heaven invading earth. He wants to see heaven poured out in our worship gatherings so that God’s presence would be so manifest that anything would be possible: salvations, healing, forgiveness, restoration, etc. “Not just fifteen minutes, but an hour and a half or even two hours of extended worship would see this start to happen…” At that point in the sermon I shouted out “TWENTY FOUR SEVEN”! He paused. “Okay! Now that’s faith! Who said that?” He asked, looking over in my direction. I raised my hand. He said “that’s good, that’s right on!” and went on with his message.

He seemed surprised it was me expressing such faith. Perhaps, it was because him and I are having a friendly debate over the nature of reality and how God heals. My wife is a medical doctor. She believes healing is from God whether it comes supernaturally through prayer or naturally through medical skill. For her and I, one way is not necessarily better than the other way.

Our pastor disagrees, preferring a supernatural manifestation of healing. He is taking his cue from a book by Bill Johnson, Senior Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding California entitled When Heaven Invades Earth: A Practical Guide To A Life Of Miracles. Johnson’s states “our mandate is simple: raise up a generation that can openly display the raw power of God. This book is all about that journey… the quest for the King and His Kingdom.” (p.27, online here)

As a member of a charismatic church, I believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit are a vital part of the ministry of the church. Healing is one of those gifts. I support and I have benefited from prayer for healing in all its various forms at our fellowship. I have personally seen God’s power at work in our congregation through prophetic utterances, physical manifestations and demonic deliverance. I believe that God is alive and aggressively active in establishing his kingdom on earth through his church.

So I enjoy hearing stories of “power encounters” as John Wimber used to describe them. This is when God’s power confronts, overwhelms and undoes demonic powers in the form of healing or deliverance. I attended a Wimber conference in Edmonton in 1989 in which the power of God was so manifest that it blew the electrical system, dimmed the lights and brought the City emergency services to the building. I have been in prayer meetings and seen evangelistic gatherings where light bulbs blew out and street lamps fizzled and went dark. I believe in the visible tangible demonstration of God’s power.

Bill Johnson’s book is full of these stories and they are of great encouragement to the church. However, I take issue with the way in which he constructs his version of reality. David Ruis, one of the founding pastors of our church, spoke recently on a Sunday morning and one thing he said struck me as capturing this problem. Ruis said, “there is a gospel that can come that puts one thing down to elevate another and that’s always a temptation in the church.” This is what I see Johnson doing in his book.

In the Foreword to the book Jack Taylor sums up Johnson’s view on reality.

“I love this book because it points us toward primary reality in a world almost totally preoccupied with secondary reality. The reader of Scripture is aware that it ultimately defines primary reality as “unseen and eternal” while secondary reality is temporal, that is, it doesn’t last (see 2 Cor. 4:18). Bill Johnson’s beliefs, teachings, and ministry center on primary or Kingdom reality and finds that reality sufficient to change the face of “that which is seen.” (p. 18, online here)

Here is Johnson’s description of the “primary reality”.

The invisible realm is superior to the natural. The reality of that invisible world dominates the natural world we live in…both positively and negatively. Because the invisible is superior to the natural, faith is anchored in the unseen…

Unbelief is anchored in what is visible or reasonable apart from God. It honors the natural realm as superior to the invisible. The apostle Paul states that what you can see is temporal, and what you can’t see is eternal. Unbelief is faith in the inferior. (p. 45, online here.)

For example, Johnson is fond of making the point that there is no cancer in heaven, so when heaven invades earth cancer must go!

“Real faith is not living in denial of the natural realm. If the doctor says you have a tumor, it’s silly to pretend that it’s not there. That’s not faith. However, faith is founded on a reality that is superior to that tumor. I can acknowledge the existence of a tumor and still have faith in the provision of His stripes for my healing…I was provisionally healed 2,000 years ago. It is the product of the kingdom of heaven—a superior reality. There are no tumors in heaven, and faith brings that reality into this one."

While I endorse the fact that there are “no tumors in heaven” and that there is healing in the atonement, and that the prayer of faith brings healing, I cannot endorse the language that divides reality into that which is ‘superior’ verses that which is ‘inferior’.

It is language that puts one thing down (the natural) in order to elevate another thing (the supernatural). It reflects a fundamental insecurity in our creatureliness, (the Latin ‘natura’ means ‘that which we are born with’) as if something is fundamentally wrong with who God made us to be, where God intends us to exist and how God intends us to work...

TAGS: resurrection

Work, the Church and the Protestant Work Ethic

Mike McLoughlin — Wed, 24 May 2006 06:00:00 -0700

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has written a great post on the Protestant view of work - the evangelical outpost: The Kye to Poverty: Equity Pooling, Job Creation, and the Church. He encourages us to pool our equity (Kye in Korean) to help brothers and sisters in the Lord invest in starting small businesses. Great idea! Lets do it! You first Joe!

Resolving the Faith Work Tension in Christian Professional Practice

Mike McLoughlin — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:55:28 -0700

Christian Professionals have real problems resolving the faith work tension in their professional practice. They ask, Is faith welcome at work? Is work valuable to God? What do I do when faith conflicts with work? Where is the balance between faith and work? Can faith make a difference at work? How?

Answers to these questions were considered at The Christian Medical and Dental Society (CMDS) of Canada conference in Kelowna...

Making A Difference: Honouring God in Professional Practice.

Mike McLoughlin — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:57:26 -0700

This is the title for a conference for Christian Medical and Dental Professionals that my wife and I are attending in Kelowna this weekend. It is sponsored by The Christian Medical and Dental Society (CMDS) of Canada.

To keep the title short, the organizing committee dropped the word “visible” as an adjective for “difference” It originally read “Making a VISIBLE difference: Honouring God in Professional Practice”

Whether honoring ...

Fuller Seminary to host Faith at Work Event.

Mike McLoughlin — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 07:54:19 -0800

Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, will host the 14th Annual International Consultation on Ministry in Daily Life sponsored by the Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life. The dates are Friday to Sunday, April 21^st to 23^rd. The theme of this year’s event is Serving God in the Workplace: People Making a Difference.

Visit this link for more information and to register online. ...

The Visible World of Everyday Work is Just as Real AND as Important as the Invisible World of Spiritual Warfare and Prayer for Healing. UPDATED!

Mike McLoughlin — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:12:44 -0800

My good friend, pastor and ministry mentor Gord Whyte was speaking at New Life Church Kelowna last Sunday morning. His subject was the apostle John’s warning against antichrists – those influences that would lead Christians astray from 1 John 2:18-27. I agree with most of his message but I take issue with a dualism that depreciates everyday work.

Gord Whyte has an anointed teaching and healing ministry that exposes deceptions (antichrists) ...

The Transformed Working Life

Mike McLoughlin — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 19:36:09 -0800

I am posting a link to an MP3 recording of the presentation I made to the International Christian Chamber of Commerce, Fort St. John Chapter, this past Thursday. I spoke about the Transformed Working Life – the Biblical foundation and practical examples both in my personal life and in the business we operate – Medi-Kel Clinic. You are welcome to download the file and listen to it using your ...

A New Way to do Politics - To Get Ahead, Let’s All Get Along

Mike McLoughlin — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:49:25 -0800

One week ago, the Canadian electorate foisted a new way of doing politics on our political parties. Conservatives have a “precarious” minority government with 124 seats. The Liberals have been reduced to opposition at 103 seats but not wiped out as some predicted. The NDP have increased their seat count to 29 but do not have enough to play king makers, The Bloc hoped for the knock out punch to the ...

Is Heaven Really our Home? Advent Hope is for New Creation not Heaven

Mike McLoughlin — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:52:01 -0800

Advent is the season of hope, that time to celebrate the birth of Jesus and look forward to his coming again. No surprise then that Barbara Walters has done a special on Heaven. (ABC News: Heaven — Where Is It? How Do We Get There?).

Pastor Ted Haggard, President of The National Association of Evangelicals and listed by Time Magazine as one of The 25 Most Influential ...

Two Books that Challenge the Way We Work - Just Enough & In Praise of Slow

Mike McLoughlin — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 08:27:20 -0700

On my way to a Christian Medical & Dental Society conference in New Brunswick this week, I came across an article in enRoute Magazine entitled In Praise of Slowness. The author Carl Honore has recently published a book In Praise of Slow : How a Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed. His basic premise is that we need to slow down in all areas of life, ...