Do you find yourself reading more on marketing strategies for your church than studying what the Spirit of God might want to do in your church? Are you concerned your church might be out of balance on these issues? Recapture your rightful supernatural heritage! Baptist General Conference Pastor and Westminster Seminary graduate presents a call to let God more fully back into our church life!
 

Pg - Heading

3 - Table of Contents

5 - Foreword

7 - Introduction

One Man's Journey Through The Landscape of the Evangelical Church

14 - Chapter ONE Escape from the "Leadership Journal"

19 - Chapter TWO One More Lyle Schaller Seminar

27 - Chapter THREE Fighting Evil In Our Streets

39 - Chapter FOUR The Big Issue: Control

50 - Chapter FIVE Does God Speak to Us Anymore?

An Awakening

62 - Chapter SIX A 12:30 AM Wakeup

67 - Chapter SEVEN Walking the City Streets

72 - Chapter EIGHT My Vineyard Experiences: The Supernatural Still Exists!

84 - Chapter NINE A Baptist Bumps into the Prophets

105 - Chapter TEN Tears in the Pulpit: The Humbling Begins

110 - Chapter ELEVEN Programs in the Circular File: The Humbling Continues

Hungry For God

120 - Chapter TWELVE Experiencing the Awe and Wonder

125 - Chapter THIRTEEN Learning to Wait on God/Seeking God's Face

130 - Chapter FOURTEEN Defining the "Dangerous Church"

136 - Chapter FIFTEEN Seeking the Footprints, Fingerprints and Aroma of Christ

God Initiates; Man Responds

141 - Chapter SIXTEEN A Wrong Number from Church Telemarketing

149 - Chapter SEVENTEEN Practical Theology "101"

157 - Chapter EIGHTEEN Different Glasses; New Look

161 - Chapter NINETEEN A New Type of "Busyness"

168 - Chapter TWENTY A Key Issue: Pride or Humility?

Whose Church Is It?

174 - Chapter TWENTY-ONE What Happens When God Rips Control of the Church From the Pastor?

182 - Chapter TWENTY-TWO Some Life Stories From Gethsemane

211 - Chapter TWENTY-THREE Living in Expectation Rather Than Substance

Recapturing Our Supernatural Heritage

216 - Chapter TWENTY-FOUR Recapturing Our Supernatural Heritage

223 - A Closing Prayer

224 - Notes

226 - Scripture References

The journal, LEADERSHIP, started in the winter of 1980. Having heard about the journal by advanced mailings and being offered a bargain subscription price, I decided to subscribe. I was not sorry I did. Filled with excellent articles and the greatest cartoons in the evangelical world, it was a welcome addition to my reading material. In fact, I would often sit and read the journal cover to cover that same afternoon it came in the mail.

Every quarterly issue of LEADERSHIP had a theme or topic around which most of the articles were written. Most of the time, I could relate with the issue's theme. At that time, I was pastor of a rural parish with an increasing attendance of urban people; the articles on "rurban" ministry were very relevant ("rurban" refers to people with an urban mindset moving into rural settings). Also, the articles on the personal life and values of the pastor struck a responsive chord within me.

But something happened about nine years into my subscription. It happened to me, not to the journal. I was struck by an overdose of advice from the experts. More and more it seemed I was facing things the journal never addressed and when relevant problems I faced were addressed, the solutions and answers proposed were black and white, stated with such confidence that I wondered whether the author had worked through the problem himself. Likewise, some solutions seemed to perpetuate a business model for the church. Still other solutions seemed to encourage only greater skill in navigating the politics of church life rather than confronting them. Article after article seemed to have 6 Steps to accomplish this and 10 Ways to solve that. The intent was to be helpful, but it began to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

To be fair, not all the articles in LEADERSHIP were of the easy answer variety. They had also published some first-person accounts of people struggling with issues still in process. These were anonymous pieces and no easy solutions were offered. I thought they were excellent. But the interviews and panel discussions tended to be made with evangelical pastors with high name recognition who pastored large churches, or they featured seminary professors trained in pastoral care or church management.

At first I thought my problem with the journal was boredom. I tend to jump in and out of subscriptions and do not show great allegiance to any one periodical. My LEADERSHIP subscription had lasted nine years. That was the longest I had subscribed to anything. Since the journal was published quarterly, there always used to be pent-up interest when it arrived. For me that interest had waned.

In the tenth year, I let the subscription expire; I did not renew. A month or so later, I received a letter from the editor, Marshall Shelley, asking why I had let the subscription expire. My response by mail stated that there were too many easy answers being given to me in LEADERSHIP. I needed to go out into the desert and find some answers on my own. It was becoming too easy to look only to the experts for answers.

Hindsight from three years down the road has helped interpret that decision in a larger context. When I had written that I needed to go out into the desert, I was simply stating a need to get away from the published answer mindset of LEADERSHIP that was increasingly irritating to me. I have since come to realize that one goes into the desert to meet God. From Jacob, to Moses and the Israelites, to Elijah, to the apostle Paul, the desert became a place of experiencing and communicating with God. This was beginning to happen to me in many dimensions.

In 1989 I began to seriously journal my prayers for several reasons. First, I had sporadically written down my prayers to the Lord for many years. There was no consistency in the practice and I did it during times when I was angry and upset with things in my life. My journaling would be a litany of complaints to the Lord. I wanted to become more disciplined in this: writing out my thoughts to the Lord in all of my life situations. The discipline of writing my prayers took time...time I needed to set apart for God. It was too easy to rattle off some verbal clichés to the Lord in the morning and call that prayer. Writing things down took time. It forced me to think about my life and examine what I saw the Lord already doing. I would have to praise Him. I would have to formulate more carefully on paper what I wanted Him to do in my life and in the church.

Secondly, I began to understand prayer not only as talking to God but also listening to Him. Prayer and communication with God were slowly becoming a dialogue rather than a monologue. I was always amazed at the on-going conversations Bible characters would have with God. He would speak to Abraham, Moses, David, and others, and they would recognize His voice and hold conversations with Him! My heart began to hunger for this type of dialogue with the Almighty. I would hear of "silence retreats" where listening to God and journaling were the only agenda. My heart was also stirred by the stories I had heard of Paul Tournier, author and doctor, who, with his wife, would begin each day in prayer before God, journaling their prayers. They would share the fruit of their journaling with each other over breakfast.

My beginnings in this were very tentative. When I could muster the nerve, I would assume a listening mode with the Lord, asking Him to block out all other thoughts in my mind and to give me His thoughts. Thoughts would flow into my head and I would put them down on paper. Often they would contain Scriptural allusions, but they would always be practical and encouraging to my spirit. Sometimes thoughts would come which I could not understand. Other times clear direction would be given to me for preaching themes and teaching texts. This time of listening always had a beginning and an ending with regard to what I should write and my emotions would almost always confirm the truth, the reality of what was coming down on the paper. I would often end these periods in tears, sensing the presence of God and sensing His love and call in my spirit to a greater degree than I had known before.

To a Westminster Seminary-trained pastor with a minor in philosophy, this type of interactive prayer, and especially writing it down, was a leap into the mystical! These times were threatening and yet they were the most satisfying times of prayer in my life. What threw me into greater anxiety was that when I followed the Lord's promptings regarding preaching texts and topics upon which to teach, the response from people in the congregation confirmed I was on the right track.

Each Sunday our congregation spends ten minutes in something we call "Praise and Sharing Time." This is where individuals can express items of praise to God, or ways in which they have seen God at work in their lives or circumstances, or prayer requests of importance. Time after time I would sit through these praise and sharing times knowing what I was going to say in my message and the issues people would address during the sharing were issues my message directly addressed! More and more this confirmed that my listening times were not some free-flowing mind exercise, but in quietness and listening I was beginning to hear the voice of my Heavenly Father.

Pastor Dale Gilmore is a Minnesota native, being born in Pipestone, MN. At a young age he accepted the Lord as personal Savior and has been active in church life throughout his life. He attended Bethel College and the University of Minnesota, receiving a B.A. from the latter in Psychology with a Philosophy minor. He received his M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1972. Pastor Gilmore has done additional graduate study at Bethel Theological Seminary as well as Jerusalem University in Israel. He has served in Baptist General Conference churches as a youth pastor and C.E. director before serving as senior pastor at a rural church near Aitkin and Gethsemane Grove Church in Inver Grove Heights, MN. He has served at Gethsemane since 1982.

Pastor Gilmore has been active in the city ministerial of Inver Grove Heights, being one of a number who founded a weekly covenant group and prayer gathering open to all clergy. He has been involved in the renewal and prayer movement since 1988, participating in Pray Twin Cities events, Celebrate Jesus 2000 planning, attending Harvest Evangelism's Conference in Argentina in 1997, and various renewal conferences locally.

Dale is married to Kathy Gilmore. Together they have two boys. The oldest, Tim, is married and is the father of 2 children. The youngest, Dan, was married in the Fall of 1998. Together the Gilmores enjoy travelling, dining out, and "exploring new places."