All kingdom leaders function prophetically.
This creates a general confusion about prophets because all elders function with revelatory capacity or charismata. Next thing you know, everyone thinks they are a prophet or everything they do and say is “prophetic.” We now have teaching that is “prophetic” when it just teaching taught by someone with prophetic capacities.
However, all leadership is prophetic leadership. We can define “prophetic leadership” as “accurately anticipating what is coming next and preparing the Lord a people ready to respond with that next season arrives.”
(I discuss this more thoroughly in the book, The Spirit and Power of Elijah available on Amazon.com. You can purchase it there.)
In the next few months, including 2019 and parts of 2020, we enter an intense preparatory time filled with extremes and ultimates. We enter greater testing and greater grace flows. We enter the time of lion’s dens and fiery furnaces. We enter the time of giants in the valley and armies standing around awaiting prepared and positioned champions.
In the next few months, some of our present leaders will fold like a house of cards. The strain of the season will expose weak marriages, money, and methods. The extremes will reveal leaders unprepared for the lack and overflow. The extremes will send some Elijah running to hear what to do with the rest of their lives.
Next. Readiness. Preparation. Testing. Grace. Strength.
What do we need now? We need fathers who test and children who submit.
Prophetic leadership sees the heart and appreciates the gifts. It honors integrity more than performance.
“I can teach you to prophesy, teach, and preach if you are called. I can also train you to be a person with enough character to stand the strain of the process of ministry leadership so you do not become another casualty of confusion.”
We need fewer John Marks and more Timothy’s.
We need fewer Barnabas babies and more Pauline warriors.
We need fewer “They seek the things of themselves” children and more “you seek the things of Christ” sons and daughters.
We do not a lot of time to discuss this, hash out the exaggerations of love and honor, and botch up another two years of strategic preparation. We need to immediately shift our priorities or we will end up short-handed again in the greatest decade of history.
The Roaring Twenties are coming! Get ready! Get ready!
