So, I want to share with you a sequence of dreams that had a big impact on my life and gave a needed push of faith as we stepped out to start theMovement back in 2001. Since we're going through Genesis chapters 37-41 right now, and very specifically, we are seeing this idea of dreams pop up pretty substantially, I thought it would be fitting to share with you how the Lord used dreams to speak directly to me.
Around November of 2000 (a little under a year before we started the church in my living room, and about 7 months or so before it was even a THOUGHT in our minds) I had a dream. A vivid, troubling dream. Here is how it went:
I was in a warehouse, seemingly made of metal as I could see light peering through holes and inconsistencies, however it was very dark in there. I was climbing a ladder to a second story, and as I was climbing, another figure was descending on another ladder. He was dark, clothing and all, and I remember just glancing at him. As I got to the top I found something disturbing: Jeremy's head.
Startled, and somehow knowing that the dark figure had done it and placed it here to hide, I grabbed the head and wanted to return it to Jeremy (one of those weird things we do in dreams!). I went down the ladder and out into the outside light. As I walked along, quickly I found Jeremy, but with a different head, a dark head that had been stitched on to his body. Not only that, but Jeremy was pushing a baby carriage with a baby in it. I gave him his head back.
And I woke up.
It bothered me for a few days. In my mind's eye, I would see a head here or there - in a wastebasket, in my closet - you know, like my mind just playing tricks on me. It bothered me so much I sought counsel, but I'll share those insights later...
Fast forward 7 months to about June-ish 2001. Through a series of events, the Lord reveals to Jeremy (and our pastor) that he is to start and lead a new church in San Marcos. During this time, much prayer is given to everyone interested to be involved, including, of course, me. Personally, I'm going through a lot right now, I'm engaged with a wedding coming up in a couple months (August 18, 2001), and the thought of starting a church would mean I would lose my job at my current church, not something you normally would be purposely doing right when you get married.
So in my (and really, all of our) struggles in faith for stepping out, we were debating on letting it cultivate for a year (the safe way) or starting immediately (the faith way, and also the way our pastor was pushing us toward). This was a big issue for us: spend the year planning or kick it off in 3 months!
During this course, I had a set of dreams:
In the first dream, I was in what was like a field with an airplane hangar in the center, as well as what seemed like a high school track surrounding the perimeter, and a tall, 15 foot fence around the very outside perimeter. A group of us, led by me (though I was in their midst, not out front), were running toward the fence, hoping to escape something. As we got toward the track, what I remember as being "Hummer-ish" pulled up with dark figures in it wielding guns. Quickly, I turned the folks around and we started running away. A few people had effectively climbed the fence, but those of us that turned around, the enemy started opening fire. I was hit in the back of the head, and in the dream I could feel the warmth of the blood in the back of my head.
And then I woke up.
That day I couldn't shake the dream, and to my surprise, that night I had another dream:
I was walking down a suburban street at dusk. At the corner there was a house with warm, inviting lighting on the inside with people hanging out having a good time. Before going in, I looked up the street and saw my wife standing in the middle of the street with a man approaching her. As I walked toward her, just before I got to her, the man put a gun in her mouth and shot her.
And then I woke up.
Now, of course, I was really scared. I went to bed that night terrified, wondering if I would have another dream. And I did:
I was at a football stadium with some people. It was somber amongst my group, but the crowd was excited. There was a platform, like a graduation platform, in the middle of the field. On it was a handful of people. Also on it was a guillotine. Knelt down at the guillotine and tied down was Jeremy.
In a moment, the guillotine came down and beheaded my brother. The crowd roared with excitement.
As we were leaving, the crowd was murmuring, "it's about time they got that guy." In a moment of frustration, I would turn to people and say "you have no idea what that man has done for this world."
And then I woke up.
That day, I had to work my other job delivering the San Diego Reader. Terrified, I sought the Lord all day long as I drove around, when a funny thing happened. On my second delivery, my contact lenses blurred like crazy. Now, this isn't totally abnormal, but it came on fast. Being a bit of a frugal type guy, I was irritated because I knew I had some saline solution at home, and I would rather just wait to get home than have to go into Vons and but a new bottle for $6. But they really blurred up.
So, my second stop happened to be a Vons. I went in, deciding to just pay the price, grabbed the solution, paid, and as SOON as I walked out the front door, my lenses cleared up instantly. I looked at the bottle and just thought "you gotta be kidding me."
As I hopped in my truck, the Lord spoke to me. "It's easier to wait, but if you pay the cost by going now, I'll give you clear vision."
BAM!!! I had to sit there in my truck in the fire zone in front of Vons with my hazard lights on, partly repenting for a lack of faith, partly thanking God for speaking to me! Excited, I rushed through my deliveries so I could get to lifeGroup that night at Steve Maddox's house. We had already planned on all of us meeting to pray on whether or not we should move forward now or wait a year.
I got there, shared my story, that I thought we should go now, and we were all united in moving forward. Steve, being Steve, added that "the Lord was trying to "contact" you so He could give you the "solution."
What a clown.
Anyway...
I also shared with them my dreams...or rather, nightmares. Here's what Steve had to say about them:
First of all, all three dreams were head injuries. Me to the back of the head, Katie in her mouth, Jeremy of course being beheaded. This was possibly symbolic of our potential authority being attacked (we were being questioned a lot on our "legitimacy," being so young, in starting a church). But looking at each one specifically became telling.
With the dream about me, I was leading from amidst people, which is, by nature, more my style of leadership, as I'm not as much of an out front type of guy. We were obviously being imprisoned, and it was my job to help people escape this imprisonment. The dark figures in the Hummers, of course, were the enemy trying to stop it.
At this time, one of our hopes and visions was to find a deeper freedom in worship and escape, more or less, "religious" worship. This was a daunting task for me, one that I really had felt a bit of pressure with. The thought of starting a church and pushing the envelope with music style and approach in order to reach an un-churched crowd and usher them to the throne room of God without the pre-tense of religion that has turned them off for so long as a scary move, well outside my comfort zone. According to this dream, the enemy knew my weak point, and assumed he could thwart my desires by attacking those insecurities by waging a battle on my mind, hoping to discourage me from even trying.
For the dream Katie was in, there was an interesting interpretation, one that has been backed up by another dream that she had that I think spoke the same thing. Here she was, outside of fellowship for whatever reason. Everyone was indoors, having a fine time, and she was in the street. She was attacked through her mouth.
My wife has a great deal of wisdom. She has a great deal of compassion and love for people as well. She also is very good at not beating around the bush and speaking directly, but in love. She has always had a desire to teach and share the great things the Lord speaks to her, and I think she has a gift for speaking directly the truths of God. But like many of us, insecurities can weigh us down. Here in this dream, the enemy was seeming to isolate her outside of the camp, for one so that he can deceive her, and for two to keep her from sharing her wisdom and insight with the camp. He then shot her in the mouth, to make sure she couldn't speak truth into people's lives.
In the dream with Jeremy, it was obvious that his was the most public as he would have the most public role and take the most criticism of all of us. The enemy did not like how much influence he would have in this community, so he, in the dream, was able to do away with him. This was a full decapitation, unlike mine and Katie's deaths, which was a real symbol of the enemy going for "the head" of this "movement," and after his authority.
In this meeting, we marveled at what the Lord was speaking, showing us that though the enemy's desire was to scare us and convince us that we're going down, the Lord was telling us to move forward, be aware of the enemies tactics, and move in faith.
So that night, to say the least, I was scared to go to bed, as I was CONVINCED that I would have a dream about Sunshine since the other 3 of us had already been targeted in my dreams.
To my pleasure, however, there was no dream. It was clear to me that since I had been seeking the Lord and got the answer (to move forward in faith), the dreams ceased. Thank You, Lord!
Now...here was the interesting thing about the dream Jeremy was in that sparked my thoughts: at the end of the dream as we were walking out of the stadium and people were commenting on how "we finally got him," I came to his defense to back him up.
Suddenly, I was reminded of the dream I had 7 months previous, where Jeremy had been decapitated and given a different head.
Rewind to a few days after that dream in November of 2000. Ron, our Associate Pastor (as well as the best man in my wedding), introduced me to a guy named Dan Ordman. I had not yet Steve Maddox yet, and Steve and Dan were friends, very gifted in their studies of dreams and such.
I sat with Dan after church and told him my dream. Here is what he shared with me:
The enemy (the dark figure climbing down the ladder) was trying to "steal" Jeremy's identity and hide it. Upon finding Jeremy, I saw that he was alive, however with another man's head, as well as pushing a baby stroller. During the next few months, as events unfolded for us to potentially start a church (which again, wasn't even a remote thought in our brains at this point), Jeremy had been dealing a lot with donning "Saul's armor."
If you aren't familiar with that phrase, it is used to describe David when he went to put on Saul's armor and it didn't fit. The picture is that God wants to do something unique in all of us and that we don't have to model ourselves after something else, but instead we can trust God to do what GOD wants to do uniquely in our lives.
In this dream, the enemy was trying to get Jeremy to not move forward in faith but rather rest and depend on the past, the way things had been shown to him, rather than push forward with the unique identity that God has given him.
The baby being pushed around was not a vision of a real pregnancy for him and Sunshine, but the Lord showing me that He would be birthing a new work or ministry in Jeremy's life. Again, this is 7 months before we even TALKED about planting a church, so we had no idea what this meant at the time.
The enemy however, doesn't want Jeremy to push around this new baby led by faith and a new work that will reach the un-churched in unconventional ways. The enemy would rather have us do the same ol' same ol', donning another man's identity and cookie cutter, seeker friendly ways. But this wasn't Jeremy, and it wasn't what the Lord wanted. And the great thing about this dream is that I was there to help him stay the course and not be swayed by the "easy way out" in "doing church." The Lord had brought me to the table to be a source of strength and encouragement so that we could move forward with God had uniquely given to us. I was there to find his "real" identity and make sure he stuck with that.
In the end, it turns out that the first dream I had in November 2000 was the sequel to the dreams in June 2001. I saw Jeremy AFTER the execution, and after coming to his defense in the crowd, I sought out to find where the enemy had stashed his head, desiring to return it to him.
Since then, all of this has come to pass. We have under fire left and right from every angle imaginable, but the Lord has used this designed teamwork, particularly with us four, to stay the course and move forward, effectively outlasting, thus far, our critics.
Katie has been growing tremendously in her gifting and ability to share critical truths with people and is experiencing more and more God's favor in that area.
And I, well as much as it's still a battle, I'm still here! And things have never been better.
So there you have it, my little dream sequence from the days of yore. You gotta love it!
Around November of 2000 (a little under a year before we started the church in my living room, and about 7 months or so before it was even a THOUGHT in our minds) I had a dream. A vivid, troubling dream. Here is how it went:
I was in a warehouse, seemingly made of metal as I could see light peering through holes and inconsistencies, however it was very dark in there. I was climbing a ladder to a second story, and as I was climbing, another figure was descending on another ladder. He was dark, clothing and all, and I remember just glancing at him. As I got to the top I found something disturbing: Jeremy's head.
Startled, and somehow knowing that the dark figure had done it and placed it here to hide, I grabbed the head and wanted to return it to Jeremy (one of those weird things we do in dreams!). I went down the ladder and out into the outside light. As I walked along, quickly I found Jeremy, but with a different head, a dark head that had been stitched on to his body. Not only that, but Jeremy was pushing a baby carriage with a baby in it. I gave him his head back.
And I woke up.
It bothered me for a few days. In my mind's eye, I would see a head here or there - in a wastebasket, in my closet - you know, like my mind just playing tricks on me. It bothered me so much I sought counsel, but I'll share those insights later...
Fast forward 7 months to about June-ish 2001. Through a series of events, the Lord reveals to Jeremy (and our pastor) that he is to start and lead a new church in San Marcos. During this time, much prayer is given to everyone interested to be involved, including, of course, me. Personally, I'm going through a lot right now, I'm engaged with a wedding coming up in a couple months (August 18, 2001), and the thought of starting a church would mean I would lose my job at my current church, not something you normally would be purposely doing right when you get married.
So in my (and really, all of our) struggles in faith for stepping out, we were debating on letting it cultivate for a year (the safe way) or starting immediately (the faith way, and also the way our pastor was pushing us toward). This was a big issue for us: spend the year planning or kick it off in 3 months!
During this course, I had a set of dreams:
In the first dream, I was in what was like a field with an airplane hangar in the center, as well as what seemed like a high school track surrounding the perimeter, and a tall, 15 foot fence around the very outside perimeter. A group of us, led by me (though I was in their midst, not out front), were running toward the fence, hoping to escape something. As we got toward the track, what I remember as being "Hummer-ish" pulled up with dark figures in it wielding guns. Quickly, I turned the folks around and we started running away. A few people had effectively climbed the fence, but those of us that turned around, the enemy started opening fire. I was hit in the back of the head, and in the dream I could feel the warmth of the blood in the back of my head.
And then I woke up.
That day I couldn't shake the dream, and to my surprise, that night I had another dream:
I was walking down a suburban street at dusk. At the corner there was a house with warm, inviting lighting on the inside with people hanging out having a good time. Before going in, I looked up the street and saw my wife standing in the middle of the street with a man approaching her. As I walked toward her, just before I got to her, the man put a gun in her mouth and shot her.
And then I woke up.
Now, of course, I was really scared. I went to bed that night terrified, wondering if I would have another dream. And I did:
I was at a football stadium with some people. It was somber amongst my group, but the crowd was excited. There was a platform, like a graduation platform, in the middle of the field. On it was a handful of people. Also on it was a guillotine. Knelt down at the guillotine and tied down was Jeremy.
In a moment, the guillotine came down and beheaded my brother. The crowd roared with excitement.
As we were leaving, the crowd was murmuring, "it's about time they got that guy." In a moment of frustration, I would turn to people and say "you have no idea what that man has done for this world."
And then I woke up.
That day, I had to work my other job delivering the San Diego Reader. Terrified, I sought the Lord all day long as I drove around, when a funny thing happened. On my second delivery, my contact lenses blurred like crazy. Now, this isn't totally abnormal, but it came on fast. Being a bit of a frugal type guy, I was irritated because I knew I had some saline solution at home, and I would rather just wait to get home than have to go into Vons and but a new bottle for $6. But they really blurred up.
So, my second stop happened to be a Vons. I went in, deciding to just pay the price, grabbed the solution, paid, and as SOON as I walked out the front door, my lenses cleared up instantly. I looked at the bottle and just thought "you gotta be kidding me."
As I hopped in my truck, the Lord spoke to me. "It's easier to wait, but if you pay the cost by going now, I'll give you clear vision."
BAM!!! I had to sit there in my truck in the fire zone in front of Vons with my hazard lights on, partly repenting for a lack of faith, partly thanking God for speaking to me! Excited, I rushed through my deliveries so I could get to lifeGroup that night at Steve Maddox's house. We had already planned on all of us meeting to pray on whether or not we should move forward now or wait a year.
I got there, shared my story, that I thought we should go now, and we were all united in moving forward. Steve, being Steve, added that "the Lord was trying to "contact" you so He could give you the "solution."
What a clown.
Anyway...
I also shared with them my dreams...or rather, nightmares. Here's what Steve had to say about them:
First of all, all three dreams were head injuries. Me to the back of the head, Katie in her mouth, Jeremy of course being beheaded. This was possibly symbolic of our potential authority being attacked (we were being questioned a lot on our "legitimacy," being so young, in starting a church). But looking at each one specifically became telling.
With the dream about me, I was leading from amidst people, which is, by nature, more my style of leadership, as I'm not as much of an out front type of guy. We were obviously being imprisoned, and it was my job to help people escape this imprisonment. The dark figures in the Hummers, of course, were the enemy trying to stop it.
At this time, one of our hopes and visions was to find a deeper freedom in worship and escape, more or less, "religious" worship. This was a daunting task for me, one that I really had felt a bit of pressure with. The thought of starting a church and pushing the envelope with music style and approach in order to reach an un-churched crowd and usher them to the throne room of God without the pre-tense of religion that has turned them off for so long as a scary move, well outside my comfort zone. According to this dream, the enemy knew my weak point, and assumed he could thwart my desires by attacking those insecurities by waging a battle on my mind, hoping to discourage me from even trying.
For the dream Katie was in, there was an interesting interpretation, one that has been backed up by another dream that she had that I think spoke the same thing. Here she was, outside of fellowship for whatever reason. Everyone was indoors, having a fine time, and she was in the street. She was attacked through her mouth.
My wife has a great deal of wisdom. She has a great deal of compassion and love for people as well. She also is very good at not beating around the bush and speaking directly, but in love. She has always had a desire to teach and share the great things the Lord speaks to her, and I think she has a gift for speaking directly the truths of God. But like many of us, insecurities can weigh us down. Here in this dream, the enemy was seeming to isolate her outside of the camp, for one so that he can deceive her, and for two to keep her from sharing her wisdom and insight with the camp. He then shot her in the mouth, to make sure she couldn't speak truth into people's lives.
In the dream with Jeremy, it was obvious that his was the most public as he would have the most public role and take the most criticism of all of us. The enemy did not like how much influence he would have in this community, so he, in the dream, was able to do away with him. This was a full decapitation, unlike mine and Katie's deaths, which was a real symbol of the enemy going for "the head" of this "movement," and after his authority.
In this meeting, we marveled at what the Lord was speaking, showing us that though the enemy's desire was to scare us and convince us that we're going down, the Lord was telling us to move forward, be aware of the enemies tactics, and move in faith.
So that night, to say the least, I was scared to go to bed, as I was CONVINCED that I would have a dream about Sunshine since the other 3 of us had already been targeted in my dreams.
To my pleasure, however, there was no dream. It was clear to me that since I had been seeking the Lord and got the answer (to move forward in faith), the dreams ceased. Thank You, Lord!
Now...here was the interesting thing about the dream Jeremy was in that sparked my thoughts: at the end of the dream as we were walking out of the stadium and people were commenting on how "we finally got him," I came to his defense to back him up.
Suddenly, I was reminded of the dream I had 7 months previous, where Jeremy had been decapitated and given a different head.
Rewind to a few days after that dream in November of 2000. Ron, our Associate Pastor (as well as the best man in my wedding), introduced me to a guy named Dan Ordman. I had not yet Steve Maddox yet, and Steve and Dan were friends, very gifted in their studies of dreams and such.
I sat with Dan after church and told him my dream. Here is what he shared with me:
The enemy (the dark figure climbing down the ladder) was trying to "steal" Jeremy's identity and hide it. Upon finding Jeremy, I saw that he was alive, however with another man's head, as well as pushing a baby stroller. During the next few months, as events unfolded for us to potentially start a church (which again, wasn't even a remote thought in our brains at this point), Jeremy had been dealing a lot with donning "Saul's armor."
If you aren't familiar with that phrase, it is used to describe David when he went to put on Saul's armor and it didn't fit. The picture is that God wants to do something unique in all of us and that we don't have to model ourselves after something else, but instead we can trust God to do what GOD wants to do uniquely in our lives.
In this dream, the enemy was trying to get Jeremy to not move forward in faith but rather rest and depend on the past, the way things had been shown to him, rather than push forward with the unique identity that God has given him.
The baby being pushed around was not a vision of a real pregnancy for him and Sunshine, but the Lord showing me that He would be birthing a new work or ministry in Jeremy's life. Again, this is 7 months before we even TALKED about planting a church, so we had no idea what this meant at the time.
The enemy however, doesn't want Jeremy to push around this new baby led by faith and a new work that will reach the un-churched in unconventional ways. The enemy would rather have us do the same ol' same ol', donning another man's identity and cookie cutter, seeker friendly ways. But this wasn't Jeremy, and it wasn't what the Lord wanted. And the great thing about this dream is that I was there to help him stay the course and not be swayed by the "easy way out" in "doing church." The Lord had brought me to the table to be a source of strength and encouragement so that we could move forward with God had uniquely given to us. I was there to find his "real" identity and make sure he stuck with that.
In the end, it turns out that the first dream I had in November 2000 was the sequel to the dreams in June 2001. I saw Jeremy AFTER the execution, and after coming to his defense in the crowd, I sought out to find where the enemy had stashed his head, desiring to return it to him.
Since then, all of this has come to pass. We have under fire left and right from every angle imaginable, but the Lord has used this designed teamwork, particularly with us four, to stay the course and move forward, effectively outlasting, thus far, our critics.
Katie has been growing tremendously in her gifting and ability to share critical truths with people and is experiencing more and more God's favor in that area.
And I, well as much as it's still a battle, I'm still here! And things have never been better.
So there you have it, my little dream sequence from the days of yore. You gotta love it!
