Pivot Series# 1, Poised for the Pivot, Part 1
Pivot Series# 1, Poised for the Pivot, Part 1
By: Bobby Sullivan
poised, is completely still but ready to move at any moment:
Pivot is a fixed foundation. All directional changes result from being firmly established first.
Pastor Sheryl and I believe from our prophetic words declared over us that Impact Church will be more than a social gathering of saints. It will be more than a church plant that you have to water daily.
I have some real close friends that believe that a dandelion is a flower and they may be in the house today! LOL Sad to say after looking it up, there are tons of health benefits from this plant and it is classified as a flower!
The negative side is the seeds produce more plants. The positive side is the seeds produce more plants! LOL
We see Impact Church as one that will sprout more seeds to produce more believers. If you ever tried to pull up a dandelion root, it is very deep and thick at the bottom.
Ezra 1:1-8 “He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah … with all those whose spirits God had stirred up, to go up to re build the house of the Lord…”
Ezra is the rebuilding, recovery and re-establishing of the temple, it’s the culmination of God’s promises coming into manifestation. They are seeing words of God being fulfilled and they are coming into a preferred destiny that is not being destroyed by them being distracted.
HEBREW word uwr :– to move by force, to rouse, incite, to stir up. This was a gracious act initiated by a loving God.
Ezra 3:11 “Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.”
I love the word UWR! Stir up! Don’t ever stick your toe into the water to test the waters but to create waves. Eric said he saw a vision of a mighty wave coming up the Lahave!
GO GET A STIR STICK! STICK IT IN YOUR BIBLE AS A REMINDER
Remember JOHN 5:4 Angel of the Lord stirred up the pool of Bethesda
Joseph / Daniel
This was in response to a prophetic word from Jeremiah.
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing: “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah
Their working knowledge of an unchangeable covenant relationship allowed them to master a changing world. They understood a covenant keeping God and they never lost their foundation.
In this time where the only constant seems to be change. We must celebrate foundations. Honor our past and those who help build what we now have.
They made a conscious decision to make God first in everything. We need to echo the example and put God first in our Time, Talents and Treasures.
What is the cornerstone of Impact Church? Before we can pivot, we must have a firm foundation.
Our Vision:
- We see Nova Scotia and the Maritimes Area filled with a network of Impact Churches. We see a church with a kingdom minded people, sold out to seeing revival in our communities and where lives are equipped and where people realize their purpose. We see a church committed to raising, training, and empowering a generation that’s committed to global transformation. We see a church that will fill every sector of culture to affect sustained transformation. We see Impact Church serving as a seedbed for raising up and releasing many leaders to plant churches throughout the Maritimes through an intentional process of focused leadership training and mentoring. We will encourage the development and strategic alignment of team ministries that will go to the nations of the world with an apostolic mandate of realizing global glory
- Our-Mission
“Transforming lives to Impact their world.”
“To establish a global high-impact Church that will raise up team ministries which will declare and demonstrate all the Good News of Jesus Christ in a relevant way to this generation causing many people to realize freedom.”
A Church That Will:
RECOGNIZE –High,ImpactMinistries
Identify each individual’s distinct life purpose.
RESOURCE –HighImpactMinistires
Impart to each individual to develop their life purpose.
RELEASE –HighImpactMinistries
Ignite a passion in each individual to demonstrate their life purpose.
Our History
We are members of an Apostolic network called The Apostolic Church In Canada. Our desire is to raise up:“ A vibrant and authentic Apostolic community across Canada.” The Apostolic Church was first formed in 1916 as a result of the 1904 Welsh revival, we are a Trinitarian, Pentecostal network of churches with a strong commitment to mission. We have established Apostolic movements in over 90 countries, many of whom are self-governing.
Isaiah 43:19 (NIV) “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Something new is brewing in Bridgewater! Don’t you perceive it? IF you perceive it and believe it you will achieve it.Perceive—become aware or conscious of (something); come to realize or understand.
God longs to be gracious to you, He waits on high to have compassion on you. Isaiah 30:18
The key word in this piece of scripture that I want you to see, is the word “wait.” We must realize that no matter how desperate our situation may seem, God has His own outline, His own plan, and His own time frame to work a surprise in our lives. We must be patient and let Him enable success for our lives.
Peter Diamandis — (Book) — THE FUTURE IS FASTER THAN YOU THINK
Change makes us uncomfortable. We have the wisdom of God in us that has yet been tapped. We must be grounded in our community. Yet not so stuck and stubborn that we can’t be willing to change without compromise. We learn how to pivot correctly.
April Rinne How to navigate our uncertain future TEDX
“35% of the skills deemed important today will have changed in 5 years.”
“The pace of change has never been as fast as it is today and yet it will never again be this slow.”
It is difficult for a church trying to be culturally relevant to navigate the tumultuous tides we face every day.
April points out that it’s not just change itself; it’s the pace of change.
She points out that we should Expand our peripheral vision, literally and figuratively.
Peripheral vision is the ability to see objects in motion outside your direct line of vision. April explains it as the “awareness of everything you’re not looking at.”
We must have a keen sense of awareness of our surroundings. On guard ready to move
She said we should learn to let go of the future.
“Many of us fear the future, and, in so doing, we get stuck, fixated, paralysed, trapped in a situation we can’t control. The more we grasp what’s no longer working, the more we’re fluxed. Now, I know this notion of letting go of the future may sound paradoxical, but I actually believe it is THE essential difference between people who thrive and people who crumble in a world of constant flux.
As Joseph Campbell says, ‘The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.’”
How do we navigate a future that feels like a minefield of unknowns?
April gets asked this question a lot and encourages people to “begin by cultivating a flux mindset, this way of thinking and being that’s so comfortable with change, that you can’t help but embrace it as the greatest magic and mystery of life.”
“To be clear, letting go does not mean giving up, or somehow failing—with all due respect to failure. I am not talking about military surrender with a white flag. Being comfortable with change and being able to let go?—these are actually our strongest human strengths. They’re superpowers in today’s world.
David Lowenthouw said in his book, “The past is a foreign country” Let’s not be a foreigner in our own country.”
The only thing that is constant today is change.
PICTURE – How long does it take to hit 50 million users?
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-hit-50-million-users/
68 years 50 million using airlines.
62 years 50 million using automobiles.
50 years 50 million using phones.
14 years 50 million using computers.
12 years 50 million using mobile phones.
7 years 50 million using the Internet.
3 years 50 million using Facebook.
19 days 50 million playing Pokemon Go.
We may have to pivot on how we do church
Pivot:— fixed point supporting something which turns or balances.
Pivots not only creates a new direction but it also creates space
The Unchangeable in relationship to the Changeable.
Malachi 3:6 “For I am the Lord, I do not change;”
Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
Isaiah 46:9-10 “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’”
Deuteronomy 8:3 “He humbled you and allowed you to be hungry and fed you with manna, [a substance] which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you understand [by personal experience] that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.God wants you to be unshakable in a world that is in a state of flux. Confident with change.
Judges 13
The Children of Israel was in a cycle of sin, rebellion, deliverance. They did not have a king at this time. They did not want God to be their king so God would have to keep raising up leaders to deliver them from the hands of their enemies.
Vs1 “Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.
What’s interesting is we always hear about God delivering people out of things but here it says, God handed them over or delivered them over to the Philistines for 40 years.
He gave them to their enemy! UH?
2 Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children.
“Barrenness was a sign or perception of displeasure with God. It wasn’t that God was displeased. It was their interpretation.
3 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. 5 For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”
6 So the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A Man of God came to me, and His countenance[ was like the countenance of the Angel of God, very awesome; but I did not ask Him where He was from, and He did not tell me His name.
The woman went to the man and said “another man came to me who looked like an angel and uh….he was awesome.
7 And He said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. Now drink no wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God (dedicated) from the womb to the day of his death.’ ”
8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, and said, “O my Lord, please let the Man of God whom You sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born.”
Basically he is saying, I’m not sure about this thing but can you send the man of God back because I have some serious questions to ask him! I need to hear this myself.
I need to understand the method behind the madness. In other words, I need to know the purpose behind the plan. What path am I to pursue? If you gave us this promise I need to know the provision for the plan.
PROVERBS 16:9 “A man’s heart plans his way but the Lord directs his steps.
The Bible guides us to: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5, 6). And that is exactly what I needed at that moment: clear guidance on what path to take!
God really gave us the idea for planning when He said in Jeremiah 29:11-13, “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.
With all that said, planning can become a problem.
9 And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came to the woman again as she was sitting in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her.
This is a little weird because Manoah prayed, God heard, but the Angel came to the woman and not him!
God doesn’t always do things the way you want or expect him to.
10 Then the woman ran in haste and told her husband, and said to him, “Look, the Man who came to me the other day has just now appeared to me!” 11 So Manoah arose and followed his wife. When he came to the Man, he said to Him, “Are You the Man who spoke to this woman?”
And He said, “I am.”
12 Manoah said, “Now let Your words come to pass! What will be the boy’s rule of life, and his work?”
Instead of giving Manoah the plan, watch what the angel does…
13 So the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful.
The Angel pivots from what Manoah asked to what he needed to know at the moment.
Some of us hold on to the promise, the plan without letting Jevoah Jirah our provider prepare the way.
Manoah machined gunned questions but the Angel just pivoted and said ask your wife.
We always look at God’s hands but sometimes we need to look at his feet because the pivot will always change directions. It changes our focus.
Confused I’m sure, but we need to know how to go with the flow, trust the pivot, trust God that any divine interruption is for our good. In 2021 I wonder if God is going to try and pivot our prayer life, pivot our perspective, pivot our passions, pivot our plans so that it puts us in a posture of trust?
Look at your neighbor and say, “There is power in the pivot”
Your perspectives changes based on the position of your pivot.
Sometimes it’s the small moves that sets the direction or even a different one.
We are always trying to find him in calculation, analysis, logic. God is spirit and you get to him through strategy. You get to him on your knees. You will never figure him out and be one step ahead of him.
We cannot in these last days (remember last days is ”a period of time that has not yet manifested itself” keep “doing” church, and start being church. Quit trying to manipulate God, debate God, question his motives. When you trust someone, you surrender doubt.
There is nothing as vital to a relationship and yet as fragile as trust. Trust in the Christian faith is the nonnegotiable element interwoven between the creator and the creation.
Faith is not a formula. We keep trying to classify and categorize and organize our faith. What’s good, what’s bad, what faith, what not, wha’ts good teaching, bad teaching, what pleases our flesh, what challenges our faith, etc.
Manoah was confused but in that confusion he had a mental pivot.
15 Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain You, and we will prepare a young goat for You.”
16 And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Though you detain Me, I will not eat your food. But if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the Lord.)
17 Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “What is Your name, that when Your words come to pass we may honor You?”
18 And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?”
One translation said, “it is beyond understanding”.
That’s the pivot! Beyond what you can understand. Everything you can name and figure out is not God.
When you get beyond your ability to work it out, That’s where “I AM” is. He is beyond our logic and our immature grasp on reasoning, philosophy and comprehension.
19 So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord. And He did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife looked on— 20 it happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar—the Angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar!
The angel was not found in the logic he is found in the flame.
21 When the Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the Angel of the Lord.
22 And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God!”
23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us such things as these at this time.”
24 So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him at Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Everything is going good until…..Samson pivoted.
14 Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.”
Problem is now he is in love with the ones he was born to defeat!
3 Then his father and mother said to him, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?”
And Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for [a]she pleases me well.”
The destiny of the nation is now threatened by Samsons decision!
4 (But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord—that He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.) NIV
Sometimes the pivot is found in pause, in the parentheses .
There is a purpose in the parentheses.
THERE IS A PURPOSE IN EVERY PIVOT
You may have to pivot to the purpose even when you feel paralyzed.
God uses Samsons dumb decision to deliver a nation! How much more will God use us in all of our frailties, inconsistencies, and short comings?
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