E.14 — The Church as Google Complex
Season 2: Episode 14
The Church as Google Complex
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In this episode you will learn:
A dream that radically shifted how I am moving forward as “church” in these days
Why God is interested in getting the body of Christ outside the building
Why moving to Zoom isn’t all God had for the church during Coronavirus
Episode length: 32:02
Transcript
What Is the Reset?
What if a church looked more like a Google complex than a building with steeple and pews? What if the reset that has spoken over the church during Coronavirus and quarantine is about Christians rediscovering the God given authority they have to transform their city and region. During the middle of the pandemic, I had a dream that reshapes how we do the Christian life for the transformation of our cities.
Welcome to God's strategy room. As we move into the new epoch in Christianity, God is releasing Kingdom strategies and blueprints. Join us as we dive deep into God's strategy room to discover the wisdom of heaven for the transformation of cities. I'm your host, Angela Meer. I am the apostolic lead for Firehouse, a center for citywide transformation in Southern Oregon. Let's jump into this week's episode.
How Do We Get There?
Can you imagine a world where the church has the authority in the natural and the supernatural to make effecting change because our city and region? To be honest with you, that sounded like something that I could imagine but never really thought could happen in real life.
I knew biblically that that's where we were going. That's what the Lord was trying to do with the church.
But I could not figure out the pieces of the puzzle that would get the church out of the pews and into the city to effect lasting and enduring change. But I had a dream during the middle of Coronavirus that really kind of gave me a strategy for reshaping my understanding of how we're kings and priests on the earth.
What happened in the dream not only significantly impacted the way that I do ministry, but it also impacted the way that I go forward now in all of my interactions regarding the city that I live in.
You see, I feel like God is really beginning to show us not just tell us what it meant when he said that he was doing a reset for the church. Because the reset, even though it sounds good in theory, what does that mean in practice? What does it mean that we are resetting as a church? Doesn't mean that we no longer go to houses of worship? Well, for some, some of us That's true. Does it mean that we no longer worship in our congregations and sing? Some of us? That's true.
But is this actually the kind of reset that God was talking about?
Was he just talking about moving to technology rather than moving into communities? I don't think so. And I want to share with you this dream about what I feel God meant by a reset. And so here we go. Here's the dream.
The Dream
In the dream I was definitely in the Pacific Northwest because I was in a grove of redwood trees. I was at the base of a very steep hill. And I was there with about 15 or 20 Christian leaders. Now, I didn't know any of these Christian leaders. And this comes into the dream later in our explanation of the dream later. So I will go ahead and share with you a little bit later about what that meant. But I was standing with about 15 or 20 Christian leaders, and we were in a tour group. And I didn't know what we were going to tour. All that I know is that we're having to get kind of organized by the tour group leader, there's some of us were wanting to go ahead and some people were going off into the woods and some people were walking from behind me. And it took a little bit to get the tour group leader to get us all organized into one group. But after he was able to do that, and kind of pause us and make us stop for a second so that we can get on this same page, the tour group leader began the tour.
Now what was so interesting about this story group leader is that I recognized him. And it was Kevin Sorbo, the actor, Christian, and activist. Now, you may or may not know who Kevin Sorbo is. But for me, I grew up watching Kevin Sorbo, as Hercules on a hit TV show. And I really loved the show as a kid. I'm really into that kind of stuff. And so when I saw Kevin Sorbo, I saw Oh, okay, he's leading our tour group. So anyways, as we begin this tour, I recognize the fact that we're at a base of a very steep hill, and I knew that where we had to go it was going to be a bit of a hike. But the next thing I know is that we're beyond the hill. And we're looking into this Redwood Grove that Kevin Sorbo is pointing out like a tour group leader would, and he's pointing out that beyond these redwoods, just beyond the trees, in a nice clearing,
There was a Google complex sitting in the middle of the redwood forest.
And it said Google across the top and it was a big kind of circular shape building almost like Epcot. And it was really modern and sleek, and it was made out of glass and metal. And it looked very odd in the middle of this redwood forest that was so natural and pristine. There wasn't even sidewalks going up to this Google complex. It was just the, the redwood forest bed, and then the Google complex emerging in this, this kind of Grove that we were in.
And that was the dream.
And when I woke up, I knew immediately that the Lord was referring to something pretty significant. And I sat on that dream for weeks, I didn't even bring that dream up with many of my leadership even though I felt like a lot of the dream had to do with the forward momentum of our ministry, as well as the forward momentum of the church at large. So as I sat on that dream, and I prayed through that dream, I begin to have some sense of a shift that the Lord was talking to me about.
And that shift was this idea that the church needed to begin to emerge as a Google complex, it needed to emerge as not something with a steeple, and pews even though many of us don't consider that our church today but it was more like the Lord was trying to reframe our entire idea of what a church could be. And I recognize that the concept of a Google complex was something more akin to what God wanted the church to look like, what does it mean that the church would look like a Google complex?
Revelations #1
Well, it's a few different things. One right off the bat that came up in my time with the Lord, as I was contemplating this dream was the concept of innovation. Now, we all know that Christians can be innovative, we see it all over. We particularly know about innovation when it comes to the founding fathers of the United States. And the founding fathers of the United States were not just innovative in the way that they founded this country. But they were also inventors and innovators in their own right, we all know that, for instance, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, they were inventors.
It was part of their makeup not only to pioneer this new country, but to also develop products that we still use today that are still very important to how we do our lives today. And so the founding fathers weren't just founding a country they were founding ideas and concepts and products that would cause our country to be a be a creative outsourcing to the rest of the world. And that has begun that did not just begin with the founding fathers, but it has traveled through history. And innovation has continued to be a massive aspect of the spiritual makeup of the United States of America.
When you look at various countries of the world, there's a particular God gift on various countries. And you can look at certain countries like I look at China, for instance, your ability to even be evangelical in China is incredible. There is a gift of God on China to be evangelical, to be able to reach out to their neighbors and to talk to them about the good news of Jesus Christ. Similarly, in Africa, there is a supernatural outpouring of God's healing on that country. I have heard from more than one missionary that I know of, and speaker that I know, that has gone to Africa and have been able to move in a healing anointing in ways that they've never been able to move in America, simply because there's a gift of God for healing upon that country, upon that continent, I should say.
So similarly,
The United States of America is a place where the creative forces of God have really been embedded into the DNA of who we are.
These creative forces have allowed us to pioneer things like cars and the internet and all these different things that have really swept the world and have become a major, major force in how the world does business, how the world moves and goes forward. And so innovation for the United States of America is really in our DNA. It's really in who we are. are as a country, it's God's gift to this country. And so I knew that the Lord was saying that innovation and invention was going to come into the church and with large, large measures that would cause the church to be able to move forward with the kingdom of God, and advancing the kingdom of God, not only in our nation, but throughout the world. And so innovation seemed to be a big part of it.
Revelation #2
The second part that really kind of started to resonate with me is this idea that the Google complex is like a large city. And I don't know if you guys have seen these documentaries or videos that they have of what it's like to be at the Google complex, and they show all the various aspects of what it's like to work there and be there. And the Google complex is a place where not only isn't innovation and invention is highly encouraged and recommended. In fact, I don't know if this is true or not. But I have heard that on Fridays, those who work for Google have to put all their projects aside and work on innovating new concepts and new ideas. And, and to me, this is a fascinating concept, the idea that they would take an entire day out of the week to be innovative for their staff, it shows you how very important it is that that innovation is part of the integral workings of how Google works.
So similarly, I felt like the Lord was saying that innovation has to become a massive aspect of the Christian church. It has to become this force by which we are able to see the kingdom of God expand. And so this that was the second idea was that we would have a community of people who were recognizing the importance of it in Innovation. And they were they were, they were really actually even setting aside time to seek out the heart of God over innovation. So that was the second thing that I got out of it.
Revelation #3
The third thing that I got out of this idea of a Google complex was this sleek and modern exterior.
It was as if instead of something that looked backward toward tradition, the Lord wanted the church to begin to look forward to those things that are innovative, exciting, new and cutting edge.
What if the church was known for being super cutting edge? What if the church was known for being archetype? You know, in always, architecturally, design wise, even the way that we design our buildings, what if we began to be so cutting edge as the church that we were looked at as the same way that we look now at the Google complex. These were the ideas that began to, to kind of percolate as I was spending some time with the Lord over this dream.
And I began to have some conversations with some key members of our ministry. And we had started in February the School of prophets, and that had come out of a prophetic word that Bob Jones had said, when he had come to Grants Pass back in 2000, that 1000 prophets were going to come out of Grants Pass and go to the nations. And it was for me this key concept of what we were doing with firehouse which is the ministry that I've started there in Grants Pass Oregon, and it was a key concept to where we were going it was the the idea that that there was this prophetic word that was huge.
It was an eagle's nest and 1000 prophets would come out of Grants Pass and go to the nation's and and I could not get over stewarding this word since that time, Bob Jones, his widow has come and visited us in Grants Pass. And she saw me in a vision, she was able to come and confirm the words of the Lord over the city and over me and over what the Lord was doing at firehouse. And so I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we had a call of God over our lives to see 1000 prophets go to the nations.
What Does 1,000 Prophets Have to Do
with a Google Complex?
But I could not figure out that calling which was a stewardship of another word that another congregation had received as a congregation that I was a part of growing up, and that congregation is no longer meeting, but I knew that it was a stewardship of that word that the Lord wanted us to do. But I could not reconcile it with this idea of the Google complex. How in the world was I supposed to steward this word? That kind of was a word that was, you know, 1000 prophets to the nations, I mean, to me it’s pretty cut and dry, 1000 prophets to the nations.
But I couldn't connect that word to this major shift that I was feeling about this idea of the church looking like a Google complex.
And it wasn't until the Lord spoke to me this verse that I began to see these two ideas begin to merge.
And that was the verse in which it said that it's a gift that makes room for a man and it brings him before great kings. And all of a sudden, I realized that innovation could be the key by which prophets went to the nations and that began to make a whole shift in my head about how prophets could be perceived in the world.
Is There a New Career for the Prophet?
Now, oftentimes, when we think of prophets, we think of prophets as people who are going and they're speaking on stages and perhaps they’re local prophets, regional prophets, or maybe they’re national international prophets, and they go and they prophesy over a given area and they speak the words of the Lord over a given area. And then the prophet begins to, you know, move on to the next place. Or maybe they just have the word and they release it to their local congregation, whatever the nature of their prophetic gift might be.
But I began to realize that what if the Lord wanted to bring back the ancient art of kings and prophets being united? You see all through the Scriptures, in the Old Testament, we see this example that prophets are not supposed to just be alone, they're supposed to be paired with kings. The reason when a fully mature prophet comes into the place in the world, oftentimes God will use them to speak to governmental authorities, whether that's regional or national. And so what I began to realize was that prophets can't just speak a word and kind of in our day and age with, with things moving so quickly.
What if prophets also carried a gift of innovation?
And they even had products that brought them before great kings? What if they had products that were solutions to problems in cities? And that thought right there began to percolate in me a whole different way of being a prophet in the world. What if prophets had an innovative gift in which they moved? And that gift brought them before great kings? Oftentimes we think it's the prophetic gift that would bring us before great kings. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. But I just felt like the Lord was saying,
“What if it's the gift of innovation that brings prophets before great kings?”
That idea alone was enough for me to begin moving and shifting in the ministry I came back from, we had about a six week quarantine with our school. And when I came back, I sat before students and I said, this is the dream I got. And this is what I'm feeling from the Lord and, and now, unanimously, across the board, everybody in the group began to realize that God was pushing us not just to be of school prophets, but a school of prophetic innovation.
And we began to make that shift towards combining the gift of the prophetic with innovation. And by doing that, what we began to see is that the Lord wanted the prophetic gift to have a practical application that would begin to shift cities and regions and nations. Already, we're beginning to have inroads in with our governmental structures in our city because of this, and it has already provided our city with a reason to meet with us not just because we are Christians in the community, but also because we're providing an innovative resource to the city to make our city stand out above all other cities to make it be a place where the problems of our city can now have solutions that comes from God's strategy room.
This has been such a wild shift for me in the way that I do ministry because I began to realize that prophets have only had one career path before this and that career path was the stage prophets. All they knew to do was to prophesied to their local pastor regional areas. And then perhaps if the Lord called them into national international ministry, all they knew to do was to profit by From the stage in the city that they've been called to. But all of a sudden, I realized that the Prophet can now have a totally different career path. That doesn't include just the stage. But it also includes all sectors of society based on the innovative product that God gives them in prophetic in the in the realm of the prophetic. So all of a sudden, every sector of society and we talk often about the seven mountains, the seven mountains or the seven spheres of culture, so arts and entertainment opens up to us, education opens up to us, media opens up to us, family and schools and governmental structures and religious structures.
They all open up to us because we're bringing the gift of innovation with a prophetic gift.
Not Just a Church
So as I began to chew this over, and I began to realize that not only was God calling us into a place of innovatively moving into society so that we were effectual in our society, I began to realize that the regional shift that God wanted us to make was that we weren't just a church. But we're actually an innovative place where solutions were going out to our city. And these were active solutions to deal with the problem of homelessness to deal with the problem of, of mental health to deal with the problem of, you know, children who are trapped in sex trafficking, to deal with the problem of what's going on with abortion in a different sectors of our society. And I realized that from a place of innovation, the church could begin to move into society with great force and great power.
And here is where the second part of my dream gets exciting.
It’s for EVERYBODY
I'll remind you that in the dream it was unknown people that I was with and I felt like The Lord was saying to me that this was a shift that he was offering to anybody who would want to take it. It's not well-known people, it's everyday Christians that the Lord is saying,
“Are you willing to begin to shift into this realm of invention and innovation?”
And as I was considering this, and considering this wide open invitation that the Lord was giving the church, I realized that innovation kind of flattens the curve, right? It opens it up so that everyday Christians can begin to be impactful in their society in ways that they never thought that they could be impactful. It moves them outside of the realm of just the church and it causes them to realize that they can be innovative and they can have an impact in every sector of society.
To Go Where No Church Has Gone Before
And what that does is it changes the structure and the dynamics of how we do church so that we're outside the doors. Instead of being concerned about whether or not we are being impactful within our church body, the Lord has given an invitation to the general Christian world, you can be impactful in any sphere of society, any single one of them. And this, to me, is such an incredible concept because it empowers the body of Christ to go into places of society that we've never gone before. It empowers the body of Christ, to feel like God is using them in powerful ways. And not just people that are well known or people who are on platforms. This could be anybody and it could be you.
Why Kevin Sorbo?
Finally, one last point that I want to bring up, is to remind you that our tour group leader was Kevin Sorbo. And I sat on that part of the dream the longest going, “Lord, what does this mean?” because Kevin Sorbo is a Christian and he's an activist. In his present day work, so it could have referred to that or did have something to do with his plane Hercules back in the day, I just didn't. I didn't know what to think. But then it came across an obscure Greek word, and it's not really that obscure. We've talked about it a little bit in the past, but the word is kratos. And I want to share with you this word this Greek word Kratos is also used alongside is a Greek word that most of us knows which is the Greek word Dunamis, okay.
Both of them mean power, but their power in two different ways.
So dunamis we've talked about is a type of power which is God's greatness within us. It's God's and a supernatural ability that is at work within us. We see this in Ephesians. Let me see link at the chapter right here. Ephesians one, verse 19. It's God's power working within us. It's miraculous power is the power that raised Christ from the Okay, dude, this is something we've talked about often. But Dunamis is a type of power that's working in the individual. When we move into epeshians chapter, one verse, again, I'm looking at my notes here. Later on in Ephesians, chapter one, verse 19. There's a different kind of power in this verse.
This power is called Kratos.
The reason why this particular word caught my attention is that I found out I'm a study of I have a graduate degree in mythology. And one of the things I realized in in this study is that I recognized that the word crate toast for power here, get this you guys, this blows my mind, is the same word that the Greeks used in Greek mythology.
A New Kind of Power
To speak of Hercules is power. You guys remember Hercules? Right? He is the guy that is super strong in Greek mythology. Hercules is also the figure that Kevin Sorbo played when I was growing up. And all of a sudden, I knew that the Lord was speaking to me. “I'm not talking to you about the word dunamis power. I'm talking to you about the word kratos power.” We talk a lot about dunamis, but let me tell you how exciting this is that the Lord is said to me “I want to talk to you about this word kratos.” The word Kratos is also a type of power but it's different from dunamis. Let me explain. kratos references more of a type of Dominion or ruling power. In other words,
Dunamis is personal, kratos is for the transformation of cities.
And I believe that what the Lord is saying that not only is he sending us out as the church to be innovative and to begin to move into new sectors of society, but he's also saying I'm sending you out with Kratos power. I'm sending you out with the power to be a to be a force in the earth to have be a ruling power to be kings in the earth like I've promised you. You see, this kratos power doesn't have to do with individual power that's working in us to help us walk away from sin to to be healed to see the powerful working move of God in the in the in the church, but kratos has to do with power that's out there. That's transformation that's transforming the cities that we are involved in.
It has to do with dominion and taking rulership over things.
Kratos is the mighty power of God.
And it was the Dominion that was first given to Adam and Eve when they when they were in the garden. was the the Dominion to take control over what was going on in the garden to name the animals to to rule in that place. And that is the same power that was now working through us through Christ. You guys, I'm getting excited because this is where it gets really, really down to, to the, to the to, to boot level. This is where we're really, really where the what's the phrase where the rubber meets the road? That's what I'm looking for.
Not By Ourselves
See, oftentimes we think, Okay, well, that's really great Angela, that God wants us to move into innovation. I see what you're saying there. But the Lord is saying “I don't only just want you to move into innovation, but I'm going to give you the power.” And the and the tour group leader of this new move of God is kratos. It's a new type of power that the Lord's wanting to release on the earth for the transformation of cities and regions and for the effecting of nations. This is an incredible move of God. We're seeing come to the earth in which the Lord is saying, “You don't have to be alone in this. I am going to come to you and I'm going to give you kratos power to be an authority to rule to be a king or a queen in your region.”
This is a type of reigning through kratos that God wants us to have.
It is one of our spiritual weapons of warfare from Ephesians 6:10 be strong in the Lord and the power, or the Kratos, of his might.
It's the way that we are able to affect the region that we're in and to move beyond the doors of the church into city wide transformation. This is a type of power that God is saying “Will the church move into the reset that we have been a part of?” This reset looks closer to the church beginning to emerge coming out with kratos power as their weapon of warfare. So as you begin to consider all of these things, I want you to know that many things are happening right now that are going to affect your change.
It's going to affect how you move in your society, how you move in your city.
And I bet you even right now, as you were listening to this, maybe ideas or concepts that you've been chewing over during the quarantine, are beginning to kind of settle deeper inside of you that maybe they weren't just an idea that you had, because you had a little extra time on your hands. But actually, it was God's greatest working in you so that you could begin to move in power in the community that you're in, in the region that you're in. This is such a powerful force that's happening right now. It's a powerful, powerful force.
And I just want to say thank you so much for listening to this podcast. This is the inaugural podcast of God's strategy room. I believe that you are going to want to move into this place of strategy for this new era that we're in because God is about to do some things to blow our minds, take the church out of the out of the box, and to begin to emerge as a ruling force on the earth, just as the scriptures has promised us to be. And so I hope you're encouraged by this. I want to remind you that with every podcast, I have a workbook that goes with it so that you can activate some of the things that we talked about. You can find this workbook at AngelaMeer.com. That's A-N-G-E-L-A, M as in “Mighty”, E-E-R.com. Okay, I hope to see you there. And until next time, this is God’s strategy room.
