What the Church Needs
On December 4 I had the privilege of sitting in a conference with Tom White and George Otis as they shared about their perception of what God is doing today. The place where we met was a Rodeway Inn, and functions to the world as a part of that larger chain. In reality, it’s a church that draws over 500 for worship on Sunday, with businesspeople staying there the weekend finding Christ before they head on home from the nearby airport. A few years ago, the motel was the largest center of prostitution here in Portland. Some of those same rooms now serve as half-way housing for kids on the way for finding jobs, Christ, and directions in life.
Tom White had been responsible for getting George in – a challenge in itself with George’s busy schedule. Tom introduced some issues for George, but it was Otis that really dropped the dynamite on us.
In summary, Otis said that we are at a very dark time in history. A time when strange leaders have weapons of mass destruction with the intent to use them and other leaders seem powerless to stop them. A time when political, economic, social, and the rest of our human systems are failing us. And this is not just at national levels, it also true in cities and regions. He’s releasing a video in about two weeks detailing this, but it is short – probably 20 minutes or so. The video shows the story of how we’ve built human institutions with time (League of Nations, United Nations, etc.) and these have all eventually failed us. The world, Otis said, faces almost certain destruction without a supernatural intervention from God.
The Good News, Otis said, is that this supernatural intervention is happening. When Otis did his Transformations I video back in 1999, he had identified about 12 cities worldwide that were totally transformed by the power of God politically, socially, spiritually, and economically – any way you could measure it. Moreover, these were sustained transformations involving the entire city that continued there over time. (Only one was in the U.S.) The video showed what happened in four of these cities.1 A few years later I asked him the count at that time and he told me had about 24 cities. This week is said the count is now over 250 cites and growing very rapidly. This is not just revival, but a supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit with stories you would not believe. George spent Monday night telling us some of the stories. Moreover, he has identified some 550 what you might call “salty places” where the fire has begun to burn and already has begun to explode. Like an appetizer for a meal, in these places there is already a deep hunger for the main course.
Thousands of cites have contacted him to come and help them get started after seeing the first video. George says he has no program. He’s only researching what is common to all of these and reporting what he sees. George says you can’t imagine yet what God wants to do. Moreover, he says taking our coffee into the Sunday Service and doing our chit-chat isn’t going to do what needs to happen. It won’t happen until there is a deep, deep, deep hunger for the coming of the Holy Spirit. In these cites people became desperate for spiritual awaking. Then the Holy Sprit comes. Moreover, here is an interesting quote from him:
The greatest breakthrough today is where the Spirit of God comes down and attaches Himself to the broken and humble. It’s where God goes when He wants pleasure.
At various conferences I’ve met several of the pastors that have led these transformations in the cities. They all fit this definition, even to the extent of these pastors being ridiculously humble. Otis says what he is seeing is much like Ezekiel 8 and the supernatural story there and the humility of Ezekiel.
To hear the sessions: