[Music] hey everyone and welcome to another episode of God is not a Theory with Ken Fish i'm your host Grant Peton and on today's episode I'm in the car and we are taking a little bit of a journey but uh Ken is somewhere and we have a special guest that is somewhere as well and a returning guest at that and so uh Ken why don't you uh throw to us the intro of our illustrious returning guest who uh I just really enjoy hanging out with and I'm I'm excited to be here i've pulled the car over on the side of the road somewhere in in the middle of Alabama to be able to talk to this guest awesome very good well today we have on the show uh returning my friend John Thomas i'm not sure when John and I first met each other but it's been a few years for sure um I met him I think ultimately through Streams Ministries which was the ministry John Paul Jackson founded when he was alive um John Thomas became the leader of Streams Ministries when John Paul died which as it works out was 10 years ago um 10 years in a in about a month at this point um so anyway John and I will be uh working on a conference together meaning both of us speaking in May in Dallas we'll get to that that's not how I want to open this but just so you know we work together we do events together from time to time and John it's great to have you back on the show it's always a pleasure to be with you yeah thanks so much for having me looking forward to this i noticed a couple of the questions that we have set up and this is going to be a fun discussion yeah all right well let's get let's get rolling here before John Paul died and again that was a decade ago um he was starting to talk about prophetic reformation what do you think he meant by that terminology let's first hear it you know from through the lens of the successor what the founder actually meant yeah well what's really fun and I didn't know this until I took over Streams I was looking at our original incorporation documents streams Ministries was originally started March 16th 1994 as Prophetic Reformation Ministries that was the original name of the ministry and it was changed afterwards because of Psalm 46:4 um there's a river whose streams make glad the city of God but that that understanding of prophetic reformation has been kind of the foundation i I actually have a cassette tape of a seminar that John Paul did in the8s called Prophetic Reformation and what it was the beginnings of the art of hearing God when when someone gave it to me I I showed it to John Paul and he's like "Oh that that's what became the art of hearing God." And it's the the core values that we teach the idea that character is more important than gifting that our our role is a function it's not a title it's something that we do to serve the body of Christ to mature the body of Christ it's not something that we do to promote ourselves and to give ourselves a platform and that the gift is something that grows over time that there's a maturity process that is key and those three pillars were the prophetic reformation that John Paul started talking about in the 80s because of his experience of the the immaturity and the issues that he saw in a rather large prophetic movement that he had just kind of finished being a part of when he started that seminar yep and I got to know John Paul in roughly that era uh both through that my interaction with that ministry but also he came to Anaheim California and was on staff at the Anaheim Vineyard and you know not many people would be able to say this but I don't think it's an exaggeration he became a mentor to Beth and me because we um and by the way the proper grammar is Beth and me not Beth and I which is the way everyone says it nowadays um anyway he became our mentor because uh we would have dinner with him and Diane in their home in your Belinda California while he was at the Anaheim vineyard uh about every other week sometimes it would be every third week but we we met regularly and it would be a long lingering dinner and we would talk about anything and everything um so yeah I I remember when all these ideas were percolating in his mind and yeah but it's been a long time i mean the years have grown long on the land and you know that's in the range of 40 years ago not quite all to 40 but getting there yeah all right well like I said he died 10 years ago and after his death you were named to be the head of Streams Ministries International tell us some of the surprising things whether they'd be good or bad uh that you discovered once you were seated in that chair and had the vantage point that you now have yeah well the the key is surprising things because a lot of the stuff that I've had to deal with is not wasn't necessarily a surprise it was stuff that was um recognized but one one of the one of the real surprises to me John Paul put out a prophetic word that he called the perfect storm uh it had been a culmination of a variety of revelations some of them he got in the early 80s um through to some clarification in the early 2000s he originally released it in 2006 2007 to to some of the the bridge pastors then publicly 2008 2009 and that prophetic word there was a lot about the difficulties that came what surprised me was how many people that were following Streams Ministries because they wanted that shock and awe of end times cataclysmic we need to prep for the end of the world kind of mentality and there was an addiction in prophetic people to things that inspired fear now the whole thing of prophetic the perfect storm was not intended to inspire fear and John Paul was very careful to to fight that and talk about how we you know when things get difficult this is when we really need the voice of God he's with us don't let fear of fear gets involved you you're missing something but I found it surprising how many people were were interested in that we had a we we had actually a ministry that would have John Paul come on and and talk about that particular prophetic word and some other things as well on a regular basis and I was in conversation with them as a successor and they were you know the idea of me coming on to their their show and and doing some conversations and they're like "Well what do you know about the what do you have about the end times what what revelations do you have about the end times?" And I'm like "Well nothing new." And they're like "Well you know maybe we won't have you on." And that that addiction to that was was really concerning and watching how some people would take those things that were shared and then take them like two or three steps further and they they became conspiracy theories and one of the things that I've recognized that when whenever a prophetic person gets involved in conspiracy theories I have never once seen that prophetic person maintain discernment afterwards say that again everyone needs to hear that restated yeah i When when prophetic people get involved with conspiracy theories begin to own them not just like oh what what's out there but like I'm I'm grabbing hold of this i I have never yet seen anybody in prophetic ministry um or even related to prophetic ministry that has gotten involved in conspiracy theories that has maintained their ability to recognize the difference between their own thoughts their soul and the voice of God and they they start to lose that real voice of God and they get caught up in that addiction thing because uh conspiracy theories really is an addiction i think so it might even be a spirit i Yes i think most almost all addictions are spiritual in some way that's right we might we might label it a spirit of whether false prophecy or false teaching but that's not really where I want to take this today so we'll just lay lay that down and leave it there for people to contemplate a little bit um all right so based on what you've seen what do you think a prophetic reformation must include well I I think we have to go back to the origins of prophecy which is the the representative or the messengers of the covenant it's one of those interesting things when you start going through the Old Testament one of one of the things you can find is the word and I can remember the Greek word but I've forgotten the the Hebrew word which I'm sure you know for angel or for messenger um it it's used of spiritual beings but it's also used of prophetic people that that it's the same word that's being used it's a role that someone plays and and the role of the prophetic person as being a messenger of the covenant we need to come back to that place where prophetic ministry is not about the the divination of what's going to happen tomorrow i it's not about fortunetelling so that people can feel more secure when they're facing the future but it's about an awareness of what God is doing so that we respond to him not to the circumstances that are around us and and I think that that is absolutely key i think one of the other really really important pieces is one of the those principles that I mentioned John Paul started teaching in prophetic reformation from the beginning that character is more important than gifting we we too often we promote people because they have gifting but I if you look at scripture people that are given authority you take a look at Paul's writings Titus and and Timothy when he's talking about the qualifications for someone that would have authority an elder that that person that all the qualifications have nothing to do with gifting it's about character issues but the problem is is we we keep on giving people with great gifting authority where people with gifting they need to be able to have a place where they can use that gifting learn grow mature be a part of a community use it to expand the kingdom of God but that's very different ministering and having authority are two different issues but we've conflated those two issues and learning how to separate those and and giving people with gifting a voice but not letting them have authority until they have proven character is going to be a key to that prophetic reformation when we talk about proven character what are what are some of the things you think of when you think of character because I can think of all kinds of things uh are we honest uh do we rip people off in our business dealings or shade the truth or do we self-promote i mean these are just a few that I might think of but I'd like to know what do you think of well I mean I would go through the the things that are said in Titus and in Timothy uh about being of good repute being able to manage your own household not given to too much wine um which today that includes uh other kind of prescription and non-prescription chemicals that that affect the the mind th those would be key um but one of the biggest things I is the area of integrity and and one of the areas and I I'm going to be talking about this you you mentioned the conference but it'll be one of the things that is going to be key is is actually separating out the difference between imagination and revelation because they're not the same thing and calling imagination revelation is lying it's a lack of integrity uh somebody that is going to say "I heard the Lord say," uh needs to be trustworthy enough have the character the integrity in them enough that they actually can be believed that what they heard was actually the Lord and and that that level of integrity that level of character is is absolutely essential and then the the other thing that I think of is this this idea of um and I know it wasn't it was not necessarily in the priesthood but in the Old Testament when a king would have people that would serve the the king's wife they would be unix and we need to come back to the place where ministers in the body of Christ are Unix where where they're not trying to minister to the bride to get something for themselves but they're actually doing it out of a love for the king and a love for the bride rather than for what they get out of it let me just make a clarifying remark here John for all of those who are listening john is not advocating that men be castrated here he's doing is he's using a metaphor in which he is saying just as in ancient times a unic couldn't perform uh so also in modern times a unic spiritual unic a servant of the of the body of Christ should not be in this for all that they can gain from the body of Christ paul uses language like this in First Thessalonians when he says "We were uh like a tender nursing mother among you and you know we we sought nothing from you and we dealt with integrity." You can look this up for yourself by the way it's in 1 Thessalonians 1 7 to9 uh anyway I just wanted to clarify that because somebody might misunderstand what you were saying yeah no that that's important all right yeah i'm I'm not one of those with what was it that one of the doctrines of demons that forbid marriage that's not the issue absolutely all right so you're hosting a conference in Dallas and um it's a two-part conference uh the first part's in April the second part's in May i'll be one of the speakers in May but why don't you tell us about this prophetic reformation colon reset what do you hope that this conference will accomplish and why did you include the term reset in the title yeah so we we had this idea of doing a a conference a prophetic reformation conference and the it ended up being two conferences because our space is limited and we decided that we would rather keep it smaller and intimate than have a big conference with a whole bunch of speakers for for what we want to do because we're really looking for people that are hungry for that reformation and that are willing to to put their hands to the plow to to really see a transformation in prophetic ministry um so we separated it out over the the two months so the prophetic reformation we decided on two different themes in April our theme is going to be the source and it's all about the revelation of Jesus and that it the the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus and pointing to that um the second one that me and you are doing is called reset and that's because we want to get back to the original purpose of prophecy and the original purpose of prophecy i mean you know we we have the modern prophetic movement that started uh about October 1988 is the the common understanding of that but the the prophetic in the church is not a modern movement it's actually an ancient movement and we we can go back into the second century and there was a healthy prophetic ministry that ended up being unhealthy over time because of some of the excesses um but prophecy in the church is has been from the very beginning and how could we come back to a reset to to what we had so that as we move forward the the prophetic movement I is able to remove the uh contaminants contagions that are in modern culture and have a have a real expression not a repeat but a reset and and that's the whole idea of a reformation a reformation or reformation is the idea of coming back to the form that was intended and and finding what that is and you know I I have a I I have a question i'm not sure it's it's a statement yet but I have a question that's been in my spirit for a few years i I wonder if the prophetic movement in its current form is able to get healthy uh I I actually am not sure that it can i I if it's going to the only way it's going to is if there's an actual reset we actually go back to starting point and rebuild with some healthy dynamics so let me ask a question here during COVID um a lot of URSTW prophets were wandering around or broadcasting they weren't doing much wandering because of COVID the lockdowns uh but they were saying online this is the great reset this was the great reset and you know once one prophet says it then 400 of them are going to say it as well and it's kind of the big copycat phenomenon i I know I sound a bit Jeremiah 23 and I apologize but but I do see this behavior often um so people were talking about the great reset then and you're talking about a reset now but I I know you well enough to know and I know from the way you're speaking about it right now that what you mean by reset is not what they meant by reset five or four years ago maybe three years ago unpack that difference a little bit for us yeah well if we just take a look at what's happened the the the reset if if you look at many of the people that were coming into a reset whether it be the evangelical church leaders clear into the prophetic movement um what they meant was we're going to get back to what it was before CO and that that to me as like I I'm not really interested in that um I I don't think that God caused COVID but I do believe that it was a great opportunity for the Lord to release an invitation an opportunity for the church to to be able to to get rid of some of those contagions that had crept into the church because we we've always had the issue in the history of people following God i mean we can go all the way back to Israel we can go back to to Jacob's 12 sons we can go to Egypt the wilderness Canaan where where people start to ingest the culture around them and the true pure worship of God gets defiled i mean that one of the other things Paul said is that all these super apostles running around that they've they've pulled the body of Christ away from a simple pure devotion to Christ and and it was concerning to him and that well that's what I'm talking about for a reset i I'm talking about going all the way back stripping it back till there's nothing but Jesus and then building on that one foundation because anything that gets built on the foundation of Christ that does not agree with Christ it needs to be torn down and redone it it can't just get a new paint job and we call it better um so the reset that I'm talking about is not a new paint job on the current form of church let's just use a little bit of different language but do the exact same thing i'm saying we we actually need to go back to some ancient habits and you know I've done a lot of study of the desert fathers and the mystical tradition uh of the church the contemplative tradition some would call it but people that have been after visions and this life with God hearing the voice of God encounters with God throughout the history of the church and we have a rich heritage that has been handed down to us that we can we can track throughout the last 2,000 years of church history that that we actually could hold on to and there's this kind of modern myth that has crept in since well basically since the um the the modern age but it's crept into the church and it's become really big in in the last 1502 200 years this idea of progress like we're we're progressing we keep on getting more and more knowledge which means that we are better and better than our predecessors uh but I would I would present to people that we've lost more than we've gained because we've forgotten some of the historical reality and the reset needs to go all the way back to a simple devotion to Jesus and and and his mission and from there we can figure out what form the prophetic needs to take to be able to accomplish the purposes of God because that is the only valid reason for any prophetic ministry to accomplish the will of God i like everything you're saying i want to add something to it in addition to that devotion I think there are a lot of people who are well-ended i mean they they are brothers and sisters in Christ that doesn't mean they aren't misguided though so good intentions do not equal good outcomes or as my mother used to say it a little more colloquially the road to hell was paved with good intentions um so I think the other thing we need in addition to that heartfelt devotion is we actually need knowledge you know in in the church we tend to say well you know knowledge puffs up but love builds up okay love is a higher thing than knowledge but that's not to say that knowledge is not needed the book of Proverbs encourages us to pursue knowledge and it even says "By wisdom a house is built but by knowledge the rooms are furnished with all good and luxurious beautiful things." I'm quoting paraphrasing a bit proverbs 24:es 2 and 3 for those who want to fact check me on this so I think knowledge is very important and I think one of the great weaknesses we have in the modern church I I might even call it an a grave weakness not just a great weakness is that we have many ministers many leaders many uh prophets many pastors who have no theological training or grounding at all they don't understand the great tradition of the church they don't even really understand how the scriptures fit together uh that that you know are part of that great tradition of the church but really the great tradition rests on the foundation of that scripture um they don't they don't understand the original languages they think because they have logos they can just click on a word and spout something off and now they are actually speaking the mind of God um and and because of this grave lack of knowledge of what is Christianity I I actually think that much of what passes as prophetic ministry today I'm going to I'm going to really go out on a limb here i'll probably get a bunch of hate mail for it but I I'll bet you above 3/4 of the prophecy that's out there is either false prophecy or a specific form of it called nasticism i would agree with that yeah you know and the thing is the the whole point of a reset and a need for a change the form is bad not all the people are bad so I'm not saying that that you know anybody that's been considered a prophetic minister that they all need to quit and we need new people that that's that's not at all what I'm intending because there I mean we we have friends I have friends you have you know you have friends that that I don't have i have friends you don't like we know we know people and there are good people and well-intentioned people and some of them um they you know they don't have the knowledge some of them are caught up in the system and some of them are doing their best to to to be who God has called them to be in the middle of the system the system needs to change and you know there there's been a lot that's talked about the the mechanism of the church and I I don't know if you you got to listen to the the podcast that Christianity Today put out on the rise and fall of Mars Hill that was I mean it was brilliant it was well done it was balanced like there there it was good but one of the things that struck me is and they didn't use this language but they showed how the modern church movement has actually become a factory for narcissists yes we we produce narcissism in our leaders and we promote narcissists because a narcissist will tell you all the ways that they are going to make you successful if you follow them they they will promote themselves they will cast vision they they will make you feel special as long as you are supporting their vision and people are addicted to that we're addicted to narcissism because everybody wants to be with the winner and that that is a huge issue because Mark 10:45 says that the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many that's right you know there's another aspect of this too narcissism is become a buzzword and nowadays people are slapping that label on everybody that they don't like um yeah and of course it's it's a modern form of demonization and I don't mean demon possession as much as I mean it's how we demonize our opponents it's how we shame and marginalize them and so forth i'm not saying there aren't narcissists i'm not saying that we don't need to call it to account but before we ever came up with this modern buzz term of narcissism um we used to just talk about people who were self-centered and we used and you know John Whimber used to say um Lord help me grow up before I grow old and you know what he meant by that is let me let me live in an otherly manner meaning on for the benefit of others rather than for the benefit of myself jesus called it dying to yourself and um Awtoer one of the great I would say modern mystics of the Protestant Protestantism in the 20th century one of his most famous quotes I don't have it in my current Bible but I had it written in the cover of my one one of my one of my older Bibles I used to use now it's just written in my heart uh Toer used to say the essence of sin is self yeah so when we talk about narcissism we are talking about an extreme form of self-centeredness self-gratification and the willingness to abuse others for our own ends and purposes and I think all of that is out of bounds for Christian leaders and Christian f Christian disciples i mean you you don't have to be a leader to need to get that out of your life but but absolutely with leaders it should not be present yeah yeah it goes back to your comment about spiritual unics i mean if we're leaders in the church we're not doing this for what we can get out of it we're doing it because we are there to serve the king and care for his bride yes yes all right well as you can all tell this prophetic reformation two-part series that John's gonna be hosting in northern Dallas Texas in April and May is going to be full of very rich teaching john what are the dates for these events so that people can mark them and if they want to sign up yeah so the the first one is April 25th and 26 and 27th so we're actually going to add a Sunday night so it' be Friday night all day Saturday Sunday and then the one that me and you are doing together is May 23rd through the 25th and where do they sign up do they go to streamsministries.org streamsministries.com all right yeah i mean if you go to.org or it'll forward you to do com but yeah all right all right so um further to everything we've been saying if we're going to reset um are we trying we well you've already kind of said we are trying to return to an earlier model of prophetic but are we also trying to as it were go boldly where no man has gone before or are we simply trying to recapture what do we mean by that reset as we think to the future well I'll use a I'll use a quote from from John Wimber that I remember hearing him say and I've never forgotten and I' I use it a lot um somebody came up to him and said "John are are we going to are we going to hear something new at this conference?" And he goes "You won't hear anything that's not at least 2,000 years [Laughter] old." And that yes but here here's the thing we've lost more than we've gained there are things that are available in the prophetic that that the church has had that we don't even realize is possible or potential and so it's going to feel new but my my hope and my goal and I mean what what we're fighting for is that everything is biblically grounded and has an expression in in the history of the church that we can look back and see because one one of the one of the issues that needs to be reformed is the prophetic is has become addicted to something new now I I've got a friend of mine we we did some conferences together like 15 years ago and he you know he he had had this astounding experience and it I mean it was it was really astounding it bore fruit he he came he talked about this encounter that he'd had with this angel he'd release you know what the Lord had given him breakthrough i mean it was beautiful it was powerful and then the next year so he did this whole the whole circuit the next year he had another encounter and so we had him come back and it was it was okay it was good it was interesting it was intriguing the next year it was I I don't even know if there was anything there there was no substance what had happened is his ministry had been built on having a fresh word from the Lord and when he didn't get a fresh word from the Lord he made one up and he didn't even realize that he'd made one up this addiction to the new is dangerous you know that that was the the the one place where it says that Paul didn't get much fruit with it was in Athens and and a lot of it was because everybody's ears were itching to hear something new and the itching to hear something new is dangerous because it loses the foundation looks good ephesians chapter 4 that the point of the apostle prophet evangelist pastor teacher it is to create a foundation is to mature people so that they're not tossed here and there by every new wind and wave of doctrine the the new thing that's coming up and and I know I know there's people that are listening because I've had to deal with this with my own heart like I know the propensity towards wanting to hear a new thing and that propensity is dangerous and and if somebody is listening and they have that propensity coming back to Colossians chapter 2 where where he's talking about these these ones that are going on they're they're puffed up talking about their visions their experiences but they've gone beyond Christ they they went past there it it's like we've got to go further to get to the deeper things i mean you know Christ was you know Christ was good but like that was the starting point now let let's go deeper and the problem is you you can't go any deeper you can't go any higher you you can't go any wider than Christ because everything that is true and good is in him and we haven't even explored him yet to be able to try to figure out the other things that are available so you can tell I've got a little bit of soap box there that's okay you can be on your soap box we're fine with that all right well um I'm trying to think how to word this because you've already answered some of what I'm thinking about but so in addition to how prophecy is delivered or we could say ministered um and we have a lot of platforms for that we have we still have live stages we've got video and digital content like this we might post things to Instagram Facebook etc uh we got all of that um what's changing about our modern understanding of prophetic ministry as we approach the 50th anniversary of the dawn of the prophetic era i I typically mark that as 1988 it was when that house of prophets in Kansas City certainly like became known they were there they were doing their thing but they were kind of a localized phenomenon until they weren't and that itself I think was catalyzed by the reemergence of Paul Kaine from 25 years of praying in Phoenix in some little house in the middle of the city um and he came to Kansas City and you know from the accounts that I've heard I wasn't there when he first showed up but he was he was kind of I don't know he was worn out and tired and he was uh weak um weak of body weak of voice um you know he'd been kind of the equivalent of living in a cave for 25 years and but when he came out it was like better not use that term that's got another connotation these days when he appeared uh he he um he stirred up a lot of things with John Paul with Bob Jones with James Gaul with a lot of other people so back to the way I was framing it so in addition to the way we minister or deliver prophecy what else is changing as we kind of mark the half century since the modern prophetic movement has emerged yeah well one one of the things that I have uh and and I've got this a little bit from uh John Sanford he he wrote a book called Elijah Among Us uh and he talks about this whole thing the October 1988 that conference that John Wimber did in Denver he he said was the point where it it opened up it it blossomed and and hit i know that wasn't the only thing that happened there's a few things that happened in 1988 but that was a major marker i mean there was tens of thousands of people i don't know the exact number i I've heard 20,000 i've heard 50,000s i I just don't know that were at that conference but you you had you had these speakers you know John Weimber um I I can't remember the other ones that that were part of their the speakers but the the people that were the ministry team that they didn't trust him to speak they were just the ministry team was Rick Joiner Bob Jones Paul Kaine John Paul Jackson Larry Randolph that that was the ministry team that was there and they would you know somebody would speak and do some teaching and then they would call a couple of them up and have them prophesy over people well you you get five people demonstrating prophecy in front of thousands there's one way that prophecy can look and be demonstrated in that way is the person up front is communicating a prophetic word usually to an individual or to a group of people that are there and this idea of personal prophetic ministry which was not a major aspect of the prophetic in any of history it was in aspect but not a major aspect became the major aspect and we're finally we're you know in the last probably 10 20 years we're starting to move towards the the more kind of predictive and the intercessory kind of really integrating that wi-i which I think is is absolutely key um but what we've missed is the the relational dynamics and I'm I'm going to go back to John Sanford's book Elijah Among Us because he goes through the different functions of the prophetic with prophetic warnings um w when you have the the intercessory burden prophetic intercession that there's so much more direction correction you know we have much of prophetic where where we're being taught in prophetic ministry that correction and direction are not part of prophetic ministry well I mean then you've got to throw out probably 60 to 70% of prophetic in scripture to be able to believe that but I mean obviously you know that was not part of the New Testament very much it was rare in the New Testament that was that was Old Testament and you know the God of the Old Testament he was mean and judgmental and we ignore that because we've got a better God that has been discovered in the New Testament um now I'm quoting Tertullian against Marcion but you know that that mentality is there we need to we need to broaden the perspective because what when most people hear prophetic ministry their first thought is either a personal prophetic minister like somebody getting up and giving a word of knowledge and maybe an encouragement in a public meeting or somebody getting up and saying what's going to happen in the next few months next six months next couple years a predictive prophecy and foretelling if you will um and that's those are both good things those are both valid things but they're small so what I think is happening is those things they they created an impact they created a hunger there's a dynamism to those things that are attractive that gets attention which is all good things when used rightly uh and that has opened up and now it's time to open back up the spectrum of prophetic ministry and get it out of this narrow place that it has been so that we can we can learn the rest of it and discover what else is available that is a really good answer that alone should sell out your conference for anybody who hears you make that statement all right uh dating back at least as far as the reformation which is about 500 years ago it's a few years beyond it now but in still in that range um theologians have said that the church is called to be prophetic um what do you think it means for the church to be prophetic and does being prophetic mean operating in the gift of prophecy yeah well it looking at many of the reformers um while many of them were what we would consider prophetic as in having predictive direct revelation uh of things that were going to happen things that were happening uh the thoughts and the intents of the heart like that that's pretty common jack Dear has done a lot of great work in um documenting that out of the reformers uh when they said that phrase that the church is called to be prophetic um what what what it seems to me from my reading like you start reading Calvin and other ones what what they were talking about was that the church was called to present God's will to the world to communicate God's will to the world and and that's where kind of th this idea that teaching and prophecy got got kind of conflated ated I I've used that word a couple times in our conversation but they they became the the same thing in the minds of some people and and I agree that some that teaching can be prophetic but not all teaching is prophetic uh that there there's a difference in that so the the idea of the message of God to the world that I believe is is what's meant by the church is called to be prophetic and there is an aspect of prophetic ministry in that but the church itself if you know I mean if we're going to have a prophetic reformation the reality is we we need a church reformation again um I think one of uh this something else that I grabbed from from John Wimber and I can't remember where he said it uh but at one point in time he he said that his his some of his first conferences is he he carried this burden this prophetic burden for God wants his church back uh and uh you know my phrasing and I I don't think he used this language but we we've we have sewn a human head on the body of Christ and it's an abomination um that that for the the church to actually be prophetic we've got to come back to the place where the church actually recognizes not just intellectually but in the way that we function as local churches as broad churches that Jesus Christ is the head of the church and we're actually supposed to be fulfilling his will and that that is a living dynamic thing and if we can get to that point then the church will actually be prophetic but until then what we end up calling prophetic in a lot of ways in the way that that is used often is that we find those things that we don't agree with that we dislike and we begin to champion them as the message of God which has actually brought about a lot of good change throughout history and some of it has been prophetic and some of it has just been opinion um yeah i think I've I've kind of said the same thing a couple times but that Well you know when you say that it reminds me of what Jeremiah said of the prophets of his day in Jerusalem he said they prophesy from their own and he said vain imaginations now vain vain can mean like Carly Simon saying "You're so vain you're so full of yourself." So there's the narcissist again mhm it could be out of their narcissistic imaginations but vain can also mean empty so it may mean something that has no merit but it's still coming out of their imagination but either way um we aren't to prophesy from the realm of the soul out of our imagination which is in my opinion it's the future mind um we are to prophesy by the spirit of God it's called inspired for a reason and that means we have to be able to do we have to find our way as John the Revelator could do he says "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day." How do we get in the spirit and then when we are in the spirit presumably we are receptive and then if God chooses to speak he may not speak just because we're in the spirit maybe he just enjoys the fact that we're in the spirit and we're with him that might be the entire purpose of that moment or season or era whatever but if he chooses to speak and he releases us to share what he spoke then maybe we might have something to say prophetically yeah yeah right it's interesting there's a there's a phrase that gets said um the prophet is the prophecy the messenger is the message and what what that what that means I mean we're coming back to broadening the spectrum of prophecy but tying in to being a prophetic church and what you just said inspired that it when we allow the interactions that we have with God to form who we are and that begins to form the way that we interact with everything around us with our friends with our family with our church with our business with our finances is with government with politics with our health but we actually get formed into the image of our interaction we become a message to the world and and and there are times when we will accidentally prophesy because of the actions that we take but then there's also a very strategic function of prophecy and so like even like you know we're talking about this conference i mean the these conferences it's about prophetic reformation but they actually are prophecy and I don't know that anybody's going to get up and say you know the Lord showed me i I don't know but I know that the messages actually are prophetic because they're speaking what is on the heart of God directly into a situation in our season and and they're they're they're carrying something of the nature of God that that's a prophetic piece so many times we we have these moments and I mean take that aside like I go to churches and I'm called you know there would you give us a a message and whenever I'm allowed to choose the message I just pray and ruminate and the Lord brings something out of my spirit and I'm preaching a message that is prophetic and I rarely ever say the Lord showed me or this is how this message came i just preach and it's astounding how many times afterwards people are like "Well do you have a prophetic word for the church?" Um listen to the recording from Sunday morning that was the prophetic word to the church yeah i I was me me and Donna were in New Zealand ministering once and we're we're in this prayer line this young man you know we're praying over people we we get to this young man donna gets a word of knowledge his name calls him by name like wow how'd you know that and you know we're we're praying over him and everything that we prayed was nothing he didn't ask us for anything we we got specific details of what was going on in his life where he needed prayer we prayed for a good 10 or 15 minutes after we're finished praying with the word of knowledge telling him his name he says "Well do you guys have a prophetic word for me?" I almost wanted to slap him i didn't because I I have some self-control but I'm like what's going on do you not recognize the voice of God unless somebody else tells you that he's speaking can Do you not have an inward witness built into your spirit that you vibrate when heaven begins to speak we We actually need somebody to say "Well thus saith the Lord for us to believe that it's actually a a prophecy." And if that's the thing that tells us it's a prophecy then what happens is somebody says "Thus sayeth the Lord," and we think it's a prophecy and it wasn't anyways there you go well that some of that has to do with expectation they've they've seen so much of a particular form of prophecy or delivery was what I called it earlier on this podcast that if it doesn't fit that form or that style of delivery it couldn't possibly be a word from God could it right yeah all right well so we're getting near the end here and you've got these uh part one part two of your prophetic uh reformation reset conference coming up in April and May now aside from the fact that you are personally going to give a personal prophetic word to every single person who attends and I am of course being tongue and cheek here I'm being facitious um what should those who come to your conference expect and how will they grow themselves in the prophetic grace by coming yeah well I mean I I I trust that you're going to be doing the same thing i know for myself me me and Daniel's been having lots of conversations about the first conference the second conference what what I just mentioned that the the conference itself is going to be prophetic that that there is going to be the the heart and the intention of God communicated and demonstrated um we we actually are praying very specifically one of the things that that I did feel for this whole year is um you know I I've spent probably the last five or six years where I kind of hesitate from giving personal prophetic words because there's been an addiction to it that I didn't feel was healthy and and I actually had to I there was a performance thing in my own heart that I had to purge um but I felt like I'd been challenged by the Lord to really press in for destiny words um for spoken words i had a friend of mine that was explaining he he'd spent some time with a a group of pioneers and in his context they call them apostolic um you know 10 or 12 of them that were all kind of doing kingdom things and every wing one of them said that they had been kind of launched into what they were doing through a prophetic word and I realize like if we are not giving the opportunity for that to happen we're actually missing something so our heart and our desire is that that's going to happen but you know I can't guarantee everybody's going to get one like you said I I've actually declined to speak at a conference where I I was you know the invitation was "Would you come and speak on prophecy and then prophesy over everyone?" I'm like "Well I'll come with a heart to prophesy but I can't guarantee I'm going to get a word for everyone." and they're like "Well brother if you had faith you'd you'd you'd have a word for everybody." And I'm like "Well this probably isn't the right conference for me to come to." So I never went to that conference um but yeah that there's there's going to be a experience in the presence of God that's going to carry something of the nature of God and that it's not just going to be information but we we actually have a prophetic roundt we we have a a group of highlevel intercessors that are prophetic that are praying right now getting things from the Lord that we're going to co- um what do I co-late that's the word I'm looking for we're going to co-late bring together and then give to a bigger group of intercessors that are going to be the the point of intercession and we have two months of intercession going on for these conferences for the word of the Lord to come to pass for the people that come to receive something of the nature of of what God is doing and what he's releasing right now and that's that's the expectation that I'm coming with so I I think that that would be a valid expectation for those that come well that sounds fantastic tell us your dates again just so everyone can catch them again yeah so the April date is going to be April 25th through the 27th and the May date is May 23rd through the 25th and if somebody was to go to streamsministries.com um we have I it's easy to find events but there's a rotating banner that is going to have that on there as one of the rotations and it'll be real easy just to find that and get all the information to register and if people can't come in person there is going to be virtual registration um so I I know we we've actually got a group in Scotland well you know Charity Bowman Web um her group in Scotland are going to be doing the the live stream together as a group and and joining us from there when they're not asleep because of the time difference but uh yeah so that it'll be good that sounds great all right well you heard it from the mouth of the man himself uh Grant you you are in transit but do you have anything you want to say add conf contradict or uh otherwise comment on before we sign off i have a uh I have a prophetic word I think for both of you no I'm kidding um no that was that was amazing and um man I love I love when you guys get together and uh and so I think this is going to be a really really great time two two of the the best thinkers I think we have going for us uh right here on this podcast uh in at least in America especially in the prophetic movement so um I I just want to encourage everyone to uh to try and make it uh to do the virtual because I believe that um more than ever we need this uh in the body of Christ right now in America and so um yeah thank you for doing this and thank you for taking time uh out and and for taking time to be with us thank you all for taking time to jump on this as well we will see you right back here uh same time same place next week for another episode of God is not a Theory with Ken Fish if you are blessed by the content on this podcast please pay it forward and click on the donation link in the description of this episode to support Ken directly you can select the Kenfish support fund or if you would like to give to support the rest of the team select the general fund thank you so much for your consideration we are deeply grateful to all of our financial partners