Heavy Rain Blog Series: Re-Forming the Church, chapter 1 of the revised and expanded Heavy Rain book, written by Marajean Edquist.
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I first encountered the book Heavy Rain
on the desk of a close friend. I’d picked it up out of a stack of other books and was absentmindedly fanning through the pages when my friend caught the title and said in a matter of fact tone “That book might be the most transformational thing I’ve ever read…” – ok, what?
I laughed, almost thinking she was teasing me, but then she wasn’t. Of course I was hooked, and not being able to deal with that kind of cliffhanger, I scampered off with the book in hand and started reading immediately. I read and kept on reading, and then I read it again. My friend was right… I got that feeling you get when you find something important – maybe you didn’t even know you were looking for it, but all of the sudden, there it is. I had that feeling.
I read the first chapter, Re-forming the Church, with wide eyes, unconsciously holding my breath, and eventually having to tell myself “hey, probably breathe again…” I was having all sorts of areas of my belief system not-so-gently poked. I was uncomfortable and yet I couldn’t shake the this-is-important feeling, even though there were weird words like “epoch” and “Apostolic Age”. As new as these terms were for me, I was finally getting language for something that had been in the heart of God for a long, long time.
DENOMINATIONALISM VS THE APOSTOLIC AGE
I have loved the Lord my whole life but couldn’t make sense of the other painful shortcomings I kept experiencing in the church. Why was the church such a dangerous place? Why wasn’t the church safer? Why doesn’t it feel more like family? We’re all looking for the Truth (spoiler alert, it’s always Jesus and He’s literally EV.ER.Y.WHERE and He’s always family). I have only known some form of denominationalism (that’s most of our stories). The trouble with denominationalism is it says, in so many words, “if your ideas don’t look like mine we can’t play any more”. The church is in for a massive overhaul and it’s already happening because we’re all desperately homesick for family… and mother’s and father’s are stepping up to the occasion. This is what the Apostolic Age looks like, family, finally.
Family is never at the mercy of anyone, not the devil and certainly not different ideas. Jesus really did take back the keys to hell, death and the grave and He handed them right over to His Family, us. Sorry, not today, Satan.
With the Church re-forming, being led by mothers and fathers, the whole world isn’t safe from having the hell loved out of it. Suddenly we’re the lethal force to re-inject peace, hope where it belongs and bringing everybody back Home. I’m brimming with excitement to see what God is going to do next, but my favorite part is how much He’s letting us in on His plan and that we get to do it together.
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For more on this subject, check out the Revised and Updated Edition of Heavy Rain: How to Flood Your World with God’s Transforming Power at HeavyRainBook.com
and watch the video below!
Are you part of a church that is being re-formed? Tell me about it in the comments below.
Marajean Edquist is a native of Texas, Honduras and Mexico. She is a writer, graphic artist and a lover of people, beauty, truth and health. She currently resides in Redding, California, where she loves people with words, humor and otherworldly delicious peanut sauce until they overflow with joy and hope.
