Last Sunday I spoke at the Chiesa Evangelica church in Belluno, Italy.
The pastor, Davide Ravasio, had requested 3 messages that were based on The Rogue Christian. The messages were:
Morning Service: Why We Have Lost Our Salt
3:30pm, second message: The Way of the Rogue Christian
5:00pm, third message: Prayer – Your Most Powerful Weapon
The day was powerful. At the end of the first message Pastor Davide invited those who had been touched by the message to come forward, and quite a number surrounded the altar, some with tears. During the lunch break Pastor David told me that the first message was “just what they needed.” During the day there were plenty of challenges along the way to go all out with God and make prayer a top priority. After the third message we broke up into small groups for sharing and prayer. I watched as they lifted up fervent, heart-sent prayers.
At one point I asked if they’d like to know how to make their church spiritually powerful… and gave the answer as them holding prayer meetings 7 days a week. I shared that the early church began with 7 days straight of prayer meetings, were anointed with the Holy Spirit, then Peter gave a message that can be read in 5 minutes, with 3,000 coming to Christ. (See Acts 1-2). True devotion to prayer is missing from many churches. A prayer-powered 5 minute message can have far more Holy Spirit-fired impact than the prayerless (or prayer-little) 45 minute version. I asked those who would be interested in attending a prayer meeting to raise their hands and at least 30% put their hands up.
You can watch the morning message in the video below. Dan Wiens is translating. We begin the first message at the 51:40 mark; their morning service is 2 hours long.
https://www.youtube.com/live/nmXDvQO5RRE?si=zkKJWv…
During the 2nd and 3rd messages I spoke of prayer and spiritual warfare, among other topics, and they wanted to hear more, particularly about prayer to overcome in warfare. I was later told that spiritual warfare is a topic that is rarely effectively discussed in many churches.
Last Sunday, I watched as God’s people went Rogue.
This is what we need. All it takes is the willingness to set aside church the way we’ve done it before and filter what we do through the Bible.
“All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.”
Acts 1:14
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
Acts 2:42
“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving”
Colossians 4:2
