December 2010 Higgs Family LINCLetter (the last one)

Dancing With The Star

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”  (Luke 2:8-14)

I have never watched Dancing With The Stars, but from what I have gathered, celebrities are paired with professional-quality dancers and are evaluated by viewer votes and a panel of judges. A few summers ago, the four Higgs took a series of ballroom dancing lessons, which was really fun but probably didn’t qualify us for the TV show. Regardless, we all love to dance and believe that, when done appropriately, it is thoroughly biblical.

Luke's’ narration of the shepherds’ experience in the Christmas story does not mention dancing, but I’ve got to think that when “a great company of the heavenly host” showed up in the sky, they weren’t just floating up there with somber looks on their faces. While I don’t know the answer to the proverbial question, “How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?,”  I do believe that the myriad of heavenly creatures who appeared in the heavens along with the created stars were quite passionate and effusive in their praise of God for the privilege of witnessing the hinge point of history: the earthly appearing of the “Bright Morning Star” (Rev. 22:16) 

A few months ago I went to an IHOP Awakening Service with Lilly and Levi while in Kansas City for a few ministry assignments. These unique services started over a year ago, after God “showed up” on campus in a very unusual way, the end result being deliverances and healings of all varieties over the ensuing months. While sitting in the back of the room as 1500 or so mostly twentysomethings worshipped, I happened to notice a man with cerebral palsy walking across the back of the room. My immediate response was a prayer: “God, what’s up with a crippled guy walking around in an awakening service where healing is supposed to be happening?” I prayed for the guy for the next several minutes until he disappeared in the crowd. Later, after a significant time was spent corporately praying for the sick, we returned to worship that was punctuated by healing testimonies from those in attendance. Well, all of a sudden the guy with cerebral palsy showed up on stage, testifying that God was healing him of his disease, and he had just ran (around the auditorium) for the first time in his life! Whoa. 

I’m not saying that the guy got healed because I prayed for him. I am saying that he got healed, by Jesus, and after his testimony and the worship resumed, I ran down to the front of the auditorium and danced like crazy before the Lord (like David in 2 Samuel 6) as my own act of grateful worship. Very undignified of me. There was another guy even more “mature” than me who, for his own reasons, was doing an Undignified Dance as well. I wonder what the twentysomethings thought when they saw the old(er) dudes freaking out. Actually, I don’t wonder, nor do I care. Maybe they were amazed at our agility. Then again, maybe not . . .

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue and read the Isaiah 61 scroll that was His job description (see Luke 4), He described the whole gospel: not only eternal life, but also healing and deliverance and freedom here and now. He later instructed His followers, through an angel, to communicate a similar message: “Go . . . and tell the people the full message of this new life.” (Act. 5:20) I think the heavenly host knew this full message was coming, and they were pretty fired up about it. I am too! And sometimes I even dance to the Son. I call that a Sondance.

 * * * * * * * * * * 

I am running out of space once again, with so much more to say. Yikes. I will try to be succinct:

• Every year about this time you are asked to consider LINC in your year-end giving. Well, consider yourself asked (ha). Year-end gifts have always comprised a significant portion of the LINC budget, and this year they will be a huge help as we transition from LINC to Sondance.  LINC ends on 12/31 and Sondance begins on 1/1, so gifts to LINC must be postmarked before the end of the year. If a check comes in a LINC envelope but is written to Sondance, that works for 2011; I will get Sondance envelopes out soon.

• Bulk mailing costs have risen significantly, and preparing the mailings has become much more time-consuming. So, Sondance will produce newsletters a little differently: hard copies will arrive via conventional mail on a quarterly basis (March, June, Sept., Dec.), while during the other months they will be distributed electronically (via email or blog) only. 

• There is a place on the new Sondance blog - http://sondancers.blogspot.com. - where you can sign up for our electronic newsletter. Since I have valid email addresses for only a small portion of the LINC mailing list, please use the blog - it will hook you up with Constant Contact, an online service that will manage Sondance emails and distribute electronic newsletters.

• The blog will also provide more details about the switch from LINC to Sondance, stuff I write that doesn’t fit in a newsletter, ministry and family photos, and probably much more.

• When I resigned as director of the Portland Youth Foundation several months ago, I started a PYF Ministry Council meeting by playing a song by Willie Nelson, “Turn Out The Lights, The Party’s Over.” I thought it would be a lighthearted way to make the announcement . Well, most in the room responded with glazed looks because they had never heard of the song and didn’t get it - when Willie recorded it, most of them weren’t even born! This time I’ll do it differently . . . thanks for praying for, and giving to, and hanging with the Higgs for 18 amazing years . . . thanks for reading close to 200 LINCLetters . . .  but don’t turn out the lights on us, the party’s still going stronger than ever, it’s just switching to a different venue, and we believe the best is yet to come!

Happy Jesus’ Birthday from LINC Ministries and the Higgs!!

IHOP Awakening and I Did Both

IHOP Awakening and I Did Both

Awakening service

With a disabled guy limping around

In the back

What up with that

The folks in this room

Are contending

For all of Jesus

And all of His healing

I know that

I also know a disabled guy

Shouldn’t be limping around disabled

In an awakening service

Jesus healed with a touch

He healed all who came

Or were brought

Greater works than these

Is what He said we would do

So He is not through

With us

Certainly not

Because the disabled guy

Just got up on the stage

To testify

Cerebal Palsy is leaving him

Gradually, but eventually

Folks here are not pretending

They are contending

For it all

They will get it all

Come Lord Jesus

Old dude freaking out

Right down in front

The joy of the Lord is all over him

And nobody even scored a touchdown

Jesus scored on Cerebal Palsy

On the Cross

And this guy is free indeed

I gotta join him

Modern day Simeons

Who saw with their own eyes

Jesus show up

Dancing with all our might

November 2010 LINCLetter

The End Is Not The End

I am sitting in the Global Prayer Room (GPR) at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, with a big smile on my face. Yes, Lilly and Levi go to school here and I’m staying with them for several days, which is certainly a good reason to smile. The worship and prayer in the GPR is, as always, incredible, and that is another reason to smile. But my smile extends beyond those two reasons; it is the smile of seeing God work in some really cool ways in the midst of the two assignments that brought me here. While Terri and I may be in the midst of one of the bigger transitions in our lives - and I will continue to unpack that transition in the next few LINCLetters - the end of our time in Canby and the end of LINC seems to mean the beginning of even more smile-producing Kingdom assignments for us both. 

Back in the late 90’s I was involved in a collaboration of national youth ministries under the banner of the Challenge 2000 Alliance. Our focus was on establishing campus ministries on every secondary level school in the country. Although we didn’t hit the goal 100%, we made significant progress before ending the Alliance at the turn of the millennium. Over the past several years, God has reconstituted the Alliance, and I’m once again a part of the mix. We met recently at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes headquarters here in Kansas City. It was a watershed gathering from my perspective, for two reasons: (1) prayer was embraced as a primary value like never before; (2) a subset of the Alliance, consisting of a half-dozen folks with prayer ministries, came to the larger group with a conviction that God wanted the Alliance to focus this year on establishing a prayer covering over every campus in the country. Everyone signed off on that! There are some amazing people that are a part of that little Campus Alliance Prayer (CAP) Team, and it will be a privilege to facilitate this initiative in the months and years to come.

Since I was going to be in town for the Campus Alliance Summit, the National Network of Youth Ministries asked me to spend an extra day with their national team. That included a wonderful time of prayer ministry to one another, as well as an “immersion” experience I set up for them at IHOP consisting of a 30-minute “intro to IHOP” from Ryan Kondo, an IHOP staff worship leader and new friend, followed by 90 minutes in the prayer room, followed by a lengthy debrief and Q&A with me. They loved the “immersion” and were powerfully impacted by so many (a few thousand) radical teen and twentysomething followers of Jesus together in one place, worshipping and praying 24/7.  A few commented that seeing the passion and zeal of so many IHOP kids is, in part, an answer to their long-standing prayers as youth workers! As a parent of two IHOPU students, I say, “Amen!”

There is a bunch of other wonderful ministry stuff happening, but I realize the need to continue to unpack the changes in ministry (from LINC to Sondance) and home base (from Canby to Carey). I’d like to do so by reviving an old, dormant (since 2006) LINCLetter standard, the Q&A issue with Question Man and LINC Man. If you are a newer reader, please bear with me on this . . .

Q: So LINC Man, nothing subtle about your last newsletter. 

A: Nothing subtle about much of what I do, I suppose. It’s a formidable challenge to explain in just a few newsletters what God has been orchestrating for several years. So I’ll do the best I can between now and the end of the year.

Q: If this has been brewing for many years, you have been rather secretive of this move and ministry change.

A: Although we have known for some time that significant changes were coming (my Board has known for a few years) we didn’t know until this past year what those changes would look like. We still don’t know the exact timing of our move to Idaho, but we are moving.

Q: So does Sondance start when you move, or earlier? And what, in a nutshell, will Sondance be about?

A: Sondance starts on January 1, 2011! Here’s the Mission; you will notice some similarities to LINC, but also some differences:

The Mission of Sondance is to serve Christ, His Church, and His Kingdom through a ministry of teaching, training and mentoring, emphasizing: 

1. Prayer

2. Kingdom living and the whole gospel

3. Community transformation

4. Hope for the fatherless

Q: That makes a lot of sense, given your ministry history as well as your present passions. But why Idaho, of all places?

A: The biggest reason is simply that God has clearly and unmistakably directed the move. We have a sense that many of the reasons will become even more clear after we get there. That being said, we do know this much: Our home will be a spiritual retreat base of sorts, where leaders present and emerging can come for refreshment, renewal and recreation. We will actively engage in our community, where we have already established significant relationships. The area has a huge Mormon population, I was raised Mormon, and we both have a great love for Mormon people, so that will be a significant focus. Beyond that, as the new Mission implies, I will continue to serve as an advocate for youth ministry in the prayer movement, and an advocate for prayer in the youth ministry movement. I will continue to deploy my “three sharp arrows” of character (holiness), prayer and unity at every opportunity God provides within youth ministry and beyond. The one major ministry assignment that God is releasing me from, the founder and director of the Portland Youth Foundation, will be replaced by a new focus on the issue of fatherlessness: To help bring hope to the fatherless through new Kingdom strategies and collaborations that focus on supernatural healing, biblical mentoring, and spiritual parenting. This issue is a very big deal both in society in general and in youth ministry in particular.

Q: OK, but why can’t you make the move and ministry adjustments under the banner of LINC? Why the new nonprofit?

A: A very good question! While keeping LINC would be legally doable (although rather challenging), we have felt God saying that He wanted newness: a new home in a new state, a new ministry focus, a new ministry name, a new nonprofit, and a new Board of Directors. Four Board members have been with LINC for 18 years, and the other two for 16 years; that longevity in the nonprofit world is almost unheard of. They have been absolutely amazing, and I will miss them greatly. But I believe that my new Board, who I will introduce to you soon, will also be amazing.

Q: What’s up with the Sondance name?

A: It’s certainly not random; it was given to us by God and has much spiritual significance. More on that later.

Q: Can I assume that something not new is your need for prayer and financial supporters?

A: That is a very, very good assumption. Sondance will be a nonprofit like LINC, just in a different state, and it will have the same need for significant prayer support. More on that in the next LINCLetter. Financial supporters will be able to write checks to LINC until Dec. 31. In the past, donations postmarked after then were accrued to the next year; this time around, anything given after Dec. 31 will have to be returned. BUT, starting Jan. 1, all donations made out to Sondance will be gratefully accepted! Our posture when it comes to raising financial support for Sondance will be the same as always: we will make our financial needs known on occasion through our newsletters only, and we will trust God as our Provider. His track record is, well, perfect. Yes, we have lost donors in the midst of the economic recession; yes, we are going to likely need some new donors, as well as some current ones to increase their commitment level. But now you know that, and our responsibility is to pray, thanking Him that He will supply all of our needs! 

Beginning of the End LINCLetter

The Beginning of the End;

The End and a Beginning

When I was very young, my Dad took our family on what was my first fishing excursion. That is a very Dad-like thing to do, but this was not an ordinary trip to the trout pond or nearby stream. My Dad’s best friend was the head of the Washington Fish and Game Department, so we went fishing at a “secret” lake and stream where huge, hungry trout abounded. One of my first memories, period, is of reeling in fish after fish after fish - all of them leviathans of biblical proportions. And one of our earlier family home movies features me sitting in the middle of a small creek, crying my eyes out, after falling down while attempting to cross what to me must have been the equivalent of the Red Sea. The memories and film are priceless; they are also rather metaphorical. I’ll explain later.

At this point, I have no idea how to make a smooth transition to what comes next, so I will just just blurt it out on paper, so to speak. You may have gathered from the poem in the last LINCLetter that something was up. You were right. LINC Ministries will cease to exist on December 31, 2010, and Sondance, an Idaho-based nonprofit corporation, will begin on January 1, 2011. There. I said it. The beginning of the end. The end and a beginning.

The following is a “Reader’s Digest” version of a long and wonderful story that will take me more than one LINCLetter to tell. Our family has enjoyed summer vacations in the Sawtooth Mountains of central Idaho for over 25 years. Within an hour’s drive of Ketchum is spectacular fly fishing, hiking, rafting and mountain biking, along with amazing summer weather, and we have taken full advantage of all the area has to offer. About five years ago, Terri heard God ask us to look for property in the area. We had no idea why, and had no clue how we would pay for anything we found, but we found a realtor to help us start looking. We soon discovered the Wood River Valley (Sun Valley, Ketchum, Hailey) to be crazy-expensive, but that wasn’t the case with the Little Wood River valley to the east. We found a lot. We went home and prayed. Within a week God supernaturally provided the money to buy the lot, in a way that was dramatic enough to get our attention. Soon, God began to adjust the desires of our hearts to align with His (Ps.37:4) and He began to show us a vision of a new place to live, and a new ministry. He has led us every step of the way. He has clearly shown us how He wants us to serve Him in the years to come. He has changed my heart in some amazing and necessary ways. He has provided, and will continue to provide, ALL that is needed to make His dreams our incredible reality. He has always been faithful in that regard. It is His nature.

So, when God gives us the green light, we will be moving to Idaho. We have no clear idea when the green light will come. When my Dad died over seven years ago, I made a commitment before the Lord to stay in the area and take care of my Mom. She is 89, her health is not all that good, and the rest of her life could be measured in months, or years. God makes the call on that one. I do not know the “when” of the future, but I do know the “what” of the present - to take care of her. She has no idea that we will be moving to Idaho right after she passes away, and she certainly does not need to know, so please help us keep that information confidential.

We will make the physical move to Idaho in God’s timing, but we will be “crossing over” into a new ministry right away. The transition has had God’s fingerprints all over it, but it has not always been an easy one - for me in particular. Like my experience crossing the stream as a child, I have fallen down and cried several times along the way. I like LINC Ministries. I like my Board, all of whom have stuck with me for the duration. I love Portland. I was born in Portland, I have spent most of my life in Portland, and I was committed to serving Portland, seeking the peace of my city and advancing the Kingdom there, for the rest of my life. I love the Portland Youth Foundation and the 350 or so youth workers who are part of that movement. All of that, and more, will not be easy to leave. But my testimony to God’s faithfulness is that He has literally, clearly, changed the desires of my heart in many respects. We will have a new ministry, a new Board, a new state, a new home, a new community, some new friends, and a really cool new adventure!

The area in which we will be living is called the Upper Camas Prairie. Somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000 live in and around the communities of Fairfield, Bellevue, Haley, Ketchum, Picabo and Carey, which are a little more than two hours northeast of Boise. In recent years we discovered that my Dad was born in Fairfield! I knew he was born in Idaho before moving to southwestern Oregon at a young age, but I had no idea where. We found the house where he was born, and the graves of several of his uncles and relatives. Two uncles were prominent doctors in the area. We also discovered that my maternal grandmother was born in Hailey, the daughter of a silver miner. Fascinating!

Sondance will be a new, Idaho-based nonprofit. Terri and I are assembling a new Board of Directors and drawing up the legal documents. We will continue to need to raise our financial support. Many of the mission distinctives of LINC Ministries will continue to happen through Sondance. I will always deploy my “three sharp arrows:” character matters to God, prayer matters to God, unity matters to God - at every opportunity God provides within youth ministry and beyond. I will continue to serve as an advocate for youth ministry in the prayer movement, and an advocate for prayer in the youth ministry movement. Rather than closing doors in those realms, God is actually opening more doors and provided more opportunities. But there will also be some  shifts in ministry. One shift  will be a new focus on the issue of fatherlessness. You are likely not surprised by that, since I have written about it recently. Actually, I can’t seem to avoid the issue - it keeps surfacing again and again and again in the books I read, the people I meet, and the music I listen to. This makes sense in light of these current statistics: fathers are physically absent in close to 50% of homes today (and are emotionally and/or spiritually absent in far greater numbers); the Prison Fellowship says up to 90% of inmates grew up without a father; the Census Bureau reports that 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes; according to the National Principals Association, 71% of high school dropouts grew up without dad around.

So, a major Sondance thrust will be: To help bring hope to the fatherless through new Kingdom strategies and collaborations that focus on: Supernatural Healing; Biblical Mentoring; and Spiritual Parenting.

At this point, I am well aware that I am likely raising more questions than I am answering. I will simply do my best in the next few LINCLetters (which will be the last of that genre; January will bring something new and perhaps even improved!) to explain what God is leading us to do, what we believe that will entail, and how you can continue to partner with us in our new adventure. I am also starting a blog (address forthcoming in the next LINCLetter) where I will do my best to provide the details that won’t fit in a newsletter. During this season, my devotional times have been so rich that the blog will be an outlet for that as well. As has been the case for the past 18 years, we are trusting God to keep both our prayer team and financial support team at full capacity. Please prayerfully consider if God would have you continue, or start for the first time, to partner with us in one or both of those capacities. We will certainly need you as we make this very significant and very exciting transition! 

From His Resting Place,

Mike & Terri Higgs

October 2010 LINCLetter

Born to parents who knew how

Without knowing why

I knew my father's love

Though not yet from above

Raised to know wrong and right

I kept the latter in my sight

Until I began to fight

And dimmed God's light

By poor choices

Listening to wrong voices

God sent me an incarnation

It was show and tell

But more show than tell

I saw it well

And I fell

Out of journalism and into eternalism

Serving Jesus and His kids 

With all my life

Soon joined by my wife

And the creative God let us create with Him

Didn't see that one coming

Times two

Then everything changed

Sickness and suffering were our graduate course

To teach us that

Of course

Jesus is not our supplemental insurance plan

He does not need to be backed up

He is solid state in the eternal state

He is before all and in all 

He is all

And He wants all

Everything

Absolute surrender

A living sacrifice

A burnt offering

Really

So we four stood together

Arms raised in worship and surrender

And called down fire from heaven

To burn away the leaven

All the idols

No such thing as an innocent idol

He is patient but thorough

We asked and He delivered

We suffer more and surrender more

To conform to the image of Jesus more

An idol

Or the furnace

For Shadrach and company there was no real choice

Why should we think there is for us

His fire has given us a thirst

That can't be quenched

For all of Him and all of His Kingdom

And all of His new wine

He is intoxicating

Only He will satisfy

When you find the Pearl of Great Price

It's not just nice

You sell all you have

All you thought

Or hoped

Or dreamed of having

Without thinking twice

Eighteen years ago

He broke me like a horse

But LINC-ed me back together

Of course

Wife and daughter and son

Broken too

With no remorse

All the way through to the core

Yet we want more

It was a great run 

But we've been re-ruined by the Son

Though it might seem strange

It's time for change

A Divine rearrange

A Sondance

September 2010 LINCLetter

Walking With God

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard You in the garden, and I was afraid . . .”

According to evolutionary theory, animals apparently made a lengthy and ultimately successful transition (measured in millions of years) from sucking water through their gills to breathing air through their lungs as a means of acquiring the oxygen necessary for life. While I’m sure the theory is by no means as simplistic as I’ve just made it sound, it seems to me that in order to follow this line of thinking, there had to be a “first adopter” - some animal had to be the first to make the transition from water to air. It must have been a brutal one, too, learning to to adapt to something contrary to what what you are designed to do. Oh yeah, evolutionary theory advocates don’t believe in intelligent design . . . Anyway, on occasion I have inadvertently attempted to make a backwards transition by inhaling some water while swimming. It didn’t work very well.

I think Adam and Eve underwent a similar brutal “first adopter” stage when they fell to temptation in the Garden of Eden. The above passage is a sad and sobering reminder of the all-encompassing ramifications of saying “no” to God. The first and immediate result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s command was shame, hence the fig leaves to cover up their nakedness. Since just a few verses earlier, the Scripture summarized the creation of Eve as the perfect complement to Adam by saying “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Gen. 2:25), experiencing that foreign emotion for the first time must have been awful. And right on the heels of shame came another hideous emotion -  fear, which the Apostle John describes as being incompatible with love: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18).  Additionally, the First Couple also forfeited relational intimacy with their Creator, which apparently included (this is implied in the passage above) the privilege of  literally walking with Him in the garden. I’d say being a first adopter of sin must have been painful beyond comprehension.

Although the capacity for relational intimacy that we were designed to have with our Creator was not fully restored until Christ’s finished work on the Cross, there are many men and women in the Old Testament who are commended for their faith. Many are obvious - Noah. Abraham, Joseph, Moses and David are just a few of the more well-known heroes of the faith. Others are not as well-known; among this latter group is a guy named Enoch. His story only takes six verses in Genesis to recount, but his legacy is worth examining more closely.

After Cain was cursed by God for killing his brother Abel, Genesis 4 outlines the line of Cain, ending with Lamech, a vengeful murderer who also introduced polygamy into human history. Pretty swell guy. But Genesis 4 ends on a positive note, for Adam and Eve have another son, Seth, to replace Abel. We find in the next chapter that the line of Seth was a very good one; in fact, the lengthy genealogy of Jesus found in Luke 3 runs all the way back to Adam through Seth. So when chapter 4 ends with the very cool statement “at that time men began to call on the name of the Lord,” we can assume that is in reference to Seth and sons.

Not only were Seth’s descendants God-followers, they were also really old dudes! Adam lived 930 years, Seth made it to 912, Enosh to 905, Kenan to 910, Mahalalel only got to 895, but his son Jared broke the 900 barrier again and set a record at 962. Then came Enoch. Most of us know about Enoch’s son, Methuselah, who set a new age record of 969 years that still stands today (Terri’s aunt Mabel turns 100 in December, so she’s over one tenth of the way there!). But Enoch was an exception, relatively speaking, to the longevity of the line of Seth. Here’s what the Bible says about him:

When Enoch had lived 66 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. (5:21-24)

The author of the book of Hebrews, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, clears up any confusion we might have about the meaning of “God took him away” when he writes, By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God has taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. (Heb. 11:5)

Enoch was one of the two people in history (the other being Elijah) who did not die on earth, but were taken directly to heaven. Pretty sweet for them. There are some who speculate that Enoch and Elijah will return in the future as the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11, and their earthy death will take place at that time. Whatever. Not dying is cool, but what is more cool is the three things I have learned as of late about Enoch:

1. He was one of only two people in the Bible who are described as having walked with God. Abraham is called God’s friend (Is. 41:8; James 2:23). Moses was described similarly: “the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.” (Ex. 33:11) David was described as a man after God’s heart (Acts 13:22).  As I have mentioned (frequently) before, my man Caleb was commended for having a “different spirit” and following God wholeheartedly (Num. 14:24). There are other biblical characters who are described as having walked in His ways or having walked before Him. But only Enoch, and his great-grandson Noah, are described, or defined, as having walked with God. Wow. More on Enoch’s grandkid in a minute.

2. Enoch was a man of great faith in a culture where there was not much faith. Many of are quite familiar with one of the seminal passages of faith found in the book of Hebrews: “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (Heb. 11:6) Not all of us are as aware that the context of this verse is the life of Enoch; here’s the last part of verse 5 that I referenced earlier: “For before he (Enoch) was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.” I can only assume that Enoch’s faith-walk was quite extraordinary.

3. Enoch passed on his walk with God, and his faith, to his offspring. God flooded the earth because “He saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” So the Lord said he would “wipe mankind from the face of the earth . . . But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:5-8) I don’t know what Enoch did to ensure that his descendants, and especially great-grandkid Noah, would carry on his faith. To be honest, I wish I did. If I am honest, I will admit I am a bit mystified that some of the men of God that the Bible greatly commends had somewhat spotty records in bringing up godly kids. I don’t want a spotty record. And I don’t think the emerging generations - a few hundred of whom are worshipping and praying in the Global Prayer Room at IHOP as I write this from that locale - deserves a spotty record. They need literal, and spiritual, fathers and mothers of whom it can be said “they walk with God.”

Here we go . . .

I tried blogging a few years ago . . . a good intention unrealized. As we make this transition from LINC Ministries to Sondance, this will be the place where we will more completely unpack/explain the details behind the move to a new ministry and a new home in a new state.  It will also be the repository of various poems, photos, and other creativity meant for the glory of God and the furtherance of the mission He has given us. So here we go . . .