Sozo church central

Dear Oaks,

YOU are personally invited.  For those of you who receive this in Canada, New Zealand and who knows where you are excused!

Sozo = saved, healed and delivered.

Tuesday evening is our monthly CHURCH CENTRAL which this month is being held at Acton Green Church, Cunnington Street, W4.  We shall start to look at some of the Sozo training course which has come out of Bethel Church in Redding, USA.

At times in church history there has been an obsession with getting people saved.  To put it bluntly “you must know Jesus before you die or you will be lost in Hell for eternity”.  In more recent times, and I realise I am generalising to an enormous extent, the church has rightly declared that salvation is about more than getting people “saved”.  It is about the kind of life the Christian lives on earth not just the reality of Heaven once they die.  I think it was Christian Aid that declared at one time that they believed “in life before death”.

The Greek word used for salvation is sozo which encompasses both understandings above and more.  It means to be saved, healed and delivered.  It includes this life and the next because in reality there is no such divide.  Once a person comes to Christ they are delivered at that point from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light and eternal life has already begun!  Physical death is just something you go through en route!

The training is something which I hope will stretch those who have previously done prayer ministry training.  It will also serve to get some of you started.  If you are new to the idea of praying for others in the manner we often do on a Sunday, then this course will really help get you going.

MY VISION FOR A SOZO TEAM INCLUDES YOU.  That is those on the present ministry team and those not yet!

It will take more than one Church Central to cover the training indeed several will be required.  But I want us to add to our present prayer ministry both in terms of personnel and the tools required to more effectively get people saved, healed and delivered.

But my vision is to have a team that can further expand Oak Trees ministry to other churches and beyond.  I believe we have great opportunities to do this. My role as leader of the international networks for New Wine (see www.new-wine.org) means that I have the great privilege of facilitating and speaking at conferences all over the world as well as close to home.  I would love to take YOU with me.

Until now I have randomly invited a few Oaks to join me from time to time.  But I want to raise the bar. I want a team to form that is passionately obsessed with being like Jesus Christ and doing His ministry (see John 14:12).  This will require standards of discipleship that include matters of character as well as a commitment to the supernatural ministry of Jesus.

If you want to know more come on Tuesday evening. If you really cannot but with more notice you would have liked to, then let me know.

I hope to see you at the meeting where more of my thinking will be outlined.  8pm, Acton Green Church, Cunnington Street, W4

Blessings,

Mark