Our identity as a prophetic community enables us to nurture disciples who are released and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be a voice to the nations and equipped to bring healing, deliverance and transformation to individuals and society . . .

Signs in the Land to the Land

A letter received from a young man in the community reflecting a heart for the prophetic and a desire to read the signs in the land . . .

God has called us to be a prophetic community and I believe he is speaking to us at the moment about what it means to embrace our identity and to function from a place of confidence and boldness.  I believe that the extent to which we understand and embrace our identity will go some way to determining the extent to which we live in the goodness of our inheritance.

Firstly, what does it mean to be prophetic?  I believe it means that we as a community look beyond what is immediately obvious.  It's as if God has given us a mandate to interpret the events that occur amongst us and around us from a different perspective.  Trying not to sound too cliché, it's like observing what's happening from an eagles' perspective rather than an ants'.  I think it also means that we position ourselves as individuals but also as a community from a prophetic perspective which means that we think big even if we are acting small.  I believe it's in our prophetic DNA to be positioned in the light of global events rather than our immediate regional context.  I think that goes some way to explaining why the Lord is talking to us about Israel at the moment.  As a community we're tasked with positioning ourselves in the light of the Lord's universal end-time perspective.  We're not called to simply reflect the realities of Collier Row, Romford or even London.

Perhaps that's why we feel we're often misunderstood.  Other Christian communities may look at us and think we're barking up the wrong tree or wasting our time with matters too big for little old us.  Perhaps they think (perhaps even we think) why don't they just get on with building the kingdom in Romford?  Why don't they just try to win the lost in their streets?  Whilst that is without doubt important, I don't think we need to apologise for endeavouring to be who God has called us to be.  We have to believe, like Abraham, that there is a reason why God has asked us to 'walk off the map'.  Perhaps that's also why so many people have left us in the last few years.  Perhaps God has shrunk us so as to limit us to those who understand, embrace, carry and celebrate our identity as a prophetic community.

We've been told we live in between times and seasons, constantly pressing into what's new without ever embracing what's present.  We need to rest secure in the knowledge that it's OK to not be where the rest of the church is.  We shouldn't have to wrestle with insecurity.  I believe God's calling us to confidently articulate our identity as a community even as we shrink and become seemingly less significant.  As a community we're not tasked with building the church, after all, the Lord promised to do that.  We're called, however, to discern, interpret and act in the light of the signs of the times.  I believe that just like Daniel, we've been given the task of articulating a prophetic vision in the midst of an occult empire.  God only needed one man who had embraced his identity to transform possibly the most idolatrous empire ever.  And he did it through the mouth of a prophet.

The most immediate outworking of our prophetic identity is community.  If you have a heart for living in community then I believe you are carrying a prophetic identity.  In 1 Chronicles 12:32 it says, 'men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do - 200 chiefs, with all their relatives under their command.'  I believe it's significant that the prophetic portion of Israel was the portion that arrived to serve David in Hebron as a relational community.  Of no other group in that list in Chronicles is it said that they arrived with their relatives.  It's in our prophetic DNA to live as community, to serve God in community and to fight in the army of God as a community.  We're called, like the men of Issachar, to be prophetically relational.

Let's not lose heart.  Let's resist the temptation to replicate the successful methods of other churches.  During this process of pruning I believe God's calling us to recapture, embrace and rest secure in our identity.  Out of our identity will flow our function.  Let's embrace those things that best reflect our identity, like community, and let's position ourselves in the light of the global prophetic vista that God's giving us so as to be ready, like Daniel, to fulfil the purposes of God in our generation.

An open letter to our friends

To explain our change of name . . .