Years ago, I heard Kenneth Hagin share about a conversation he had with the Lord about the phases of a man’s life and ministry.  He said that “most men live and die and never even get into the first phase of their ministry.”  That birthed within me the desire that I won’t miss the different phases of my life and ministry but that I would fulfill all He has called me to do in the earth.  I have been aware for the last few years that I was approaching a major change of emphasis of my life and ministry.  I am sensing that I am preparing during this particular season for the last phase of my life and ministry.  After a lot of meditation and prayer, I believe I am beginning to get a glimpse of the beginning steps into that reality.

Much of what a man does over the course of his life is to prepare him for the ultimate purpose for why he is sent into the earth.  During the first phases, the man is being taught and trained in the various assignments he is given.  The goal of the Lord is to equip and release him into the last phase of his life and ministry as he finishes the race set out for him by the Lord.

I remember listening to a word from the Lord to a pastor in New Jersey.  The Lord told him that He (the Lord) was not as interested in building a church (a ministry) as He was in building a man in response to the changing phases of his life and ministry.  I have never forgotten that but connected it to what the Lord had said to Kenneth Hagin about how a man could miss the phase changes of his life and ministry. 

In 2008, the Lord sent me to Towson, Maryland with an assignment that I had no idea how much it would change, shape and alter my life and ministry for the future.  I went in obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit and with the blessing of those over me in the Lord.  There were a handful of prophetic words spoken to me and over me indicating that God has given me stewardship of this ministry as a way of preparing me and providing for me in the fulfillment of His calling and purpose for my life.  In looking back over the last twelve years, I’ve come to realize that the Lord had much teaching and training in mind for me in order to prepare me for what He has for me in the last phase of my life and ministry.

My ministry began much like most other men and women called to preach.  I went where doors opened.  I did a variety of things in and outside the church.  In the early days of preaching, zeal was a driving force and I was more than happy to do anything that even resembled what was thought of as “ministry”. 

The next phase was a desire for teaching.  This led to God sending me to Rhema Bible Training College.  After two years there, I took a position as an associate minister in South Carolina for a year for further teaching and training.  From there, I was sent to Pennsylvania to pastor a small church in a rural area.  I spent 23 years there shepherding people’s lives.  I was learning to love people.  I was making my mistakes and learning from them.  I was growing into my calling. 

There came a time for a transition into the next phase as I began to be sent to other churches, other ministries and other pastors to assist them.  By this time in my life, I was discovering that I wasn’t particularly called to be a pastor, but that God had something else in mind.  Kenneth Hagin taught us that “you very seldom start out in the gifting you are called to walk in, but you must prove faithful first”.  I was learning about the prophetic realm and my call as a prophet when the Lord began to introduce me to the apostolic ministry.  He sent me and I went in obedience.  

During the course of this phase of my life and ministry, I was introduced to the mandate of discipleship.  I began to see that the church is not an organization but an organism.  I began to see that the church was built on relationships, not on meetings.  I began to see that the true building that the Lord was building was not a brick and mortar building, but it was the body of Christ, being built together in spirit into a holy habitation, a family.  As with every phase change, there were a lot of things to unlearn as well as to learn.  This phase was paramount in realizing that much of what we have been doing was just managing people and keeping them coming to meetings and supporting the upkeep of a building.  My understanding of the church was dismantled and a new understanding of it was being erected. 

It was during this phase of my life and ministry that I was given a prophetic picture of the future through an encounter with the Holy Spirit.  In November of 1990, at the height of our “success” as a local church, I was instructed to take a month away from the church to hear the Lord.  We had reached a pinnacle of being a Word of Faith church with all that accompanied that scenario.  Yet, with perceived success that we had “arrived”, there was an uneasiness and emptiness that was bothering me.  In seeking the Lord, I was given this mandate of taking the month off.  I was awakened early in the morning on November 4th with a phrase from the Lord -” My body is fragmented”.  This led to the Holy Spirit giving me the Acts 27 prophetic message from the Lord that “the church in its present ‘form’ cannot contain what I want to do in the earth”. 

With this new revelation came the faith and desire to build what the Lord was building.  With it also came a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of mistakes as I was prone to try to build faster than my mind could truly be renewed and with that came the inability of the people to keep up with the massive change coming to the ongoing life of the fellowship.  We all tried very hard to adapt to the revelation.  It was not easy, it was fraught with mistakes, and only by the grace and mercy of God did we accomplish what little real transformation we did experience.

Yet, here I am, after all these years, poised to enter the last phase of my life and ministry.  It may or may not usher in the return of the Lord.  But I believe that I am seeing my perspective shifted to that of hoping to be like David, that it would be said of me that I “served the purpose of God in my generation”.  God is indeed shifting the church from generation to generation one step closer to His intended goal for it.  One of the mistakes I made and has been made in all preceding generations is to believe that everything God wants to do will be accomplished in my lifetime and consequently, I have to make sure that it does.  No pun intended, but that is the pride that we all have to face at some point.  No, I have learned that the times and seasons are in His power and He is not under the pressure to get a rush job done.  Instead, He is methodically building His church and extending His kingdom in the earth.  We are privileged to be a part of that.  I look back and I’m so grateful to have been a part of one of the great moves of God in the earth to shift the church closer to what He wants – the Charismatic, Word of Faith renewal.  Now, in my latter years, I believe I am seeing a new wave of renewal coming into shore.  We are just beginning to see the changes that are being heralded by the prophets and apostles of what the future has in store.  These are awesome days!  I will finish my race in the coming years and will join the great cloud of witnesses to behold what the Lord will do in the coming generations.  He will build His church, His kingdom will continue to expand in the earth and one day, He will return.  Until then, I want to do my part in contributing to the foundation that is being laid for the church that is glorious, without spot or wrinkle, that is holy and without blemish.  I want to leave knowing I did my part in serving His purpose and hand off to the next generation that which is of substance, that will enable them to pick up where we leave off.  There is a work to be done.  We must occupy till He comes! 

With all that said, I am now peering into the last leg of my race in the earth.   I want to spend it not just doing ministry, but I want to invest it into those sons that He sends me to.  I want to leave behind all that I have learned, both the successes and the failures, to aid those taking the baton in running their race.