Momentum Matters in a Movement

You're listening to an ex church podcast. We hope this

message will light up your day.

Listen. Ex Church is a movement, not just a church,

and we are moving wherever the Holy Spirit tells us.

And the reason why many cannot be faithful anymore is

because they lost faith and two persons struck down twenty

in the first killing. That's what I call it ten

times blessing. A church survives and thrives on what I

term as movement movement. You need movement to have impact.

You can be hit by a car that's not moving

and not have any damage, no hurt, no scratch, no pain.

Or you can be hit by a car that's moving,

and depending on how fast that car is going and

how big that car is, the impact will be greater. Okay,

so you're talking about impact right when you're talking about church,

we're talking about nonprofit organizations Christian work. Aren't we hoping

for impact? Community impact? Family impact, impact to the young

people that you're leading? Impact? Right? No point in having

a church or a nonprofit that has no impact. It's

like having a lion without teeth or without teeth and

without clause. All right, there's no bite, right, you don't

just want to back. And maybe there's a lot of

churches and ministries out there that are barking, but there's

no bite, there's no real difference being made. And I

pray that none of you watching are in that place.

But if you are, then listen to my heart, because

even if you are doing very well, once upon a time,

one thing about movement is that the operative word is moved,

and you have If you have stopped moving, then you

can't be called a movement. A movement moves, so a church,

a nonprofit, a Christian work, charitable work again survives and

thrives on movement. And the greater the movement, the greater

the impact. Okay, I want you to get that. The

greater the movement, the greater the impact. You don't want

to be a stalled car. You don't want to be

a ship that's not moving. Remember we heard it before.

You can only steer a ship when it's moving. And

a lot of people try to steer and do a

lot of things and training and you know, investment, but

the ship is not moving. You want to steer a ship,

You want to get things going. You've got to be moving. Okay,

this is my next thought. A movement happens when there

is momentum momentum. The similarity between movement and momentum is

this ball, after a while, takes a life of its own,

like a snowball that is coming down a mountain that

is keppt with snow. The snow ball may have started

with someone throwing it or pushing it, so it starts

with effort. It starts with someone doing something, but when

it continues down the mountain, it gains momentum. And momentum

in science is determined by mass or mass whichever country

you come from, times velocity, so the greater the mass

or the bigger an item is. And of course, like

a snowball, it can get bigger as it goes down,

and the greater the velocity, the faster it goes down,

the greater the momentum, and the greater the momentum, the

greater the movement, and the greater the movement, the greater

the impact. If you're just hit by one small snowball,

it doesn't hurt as much as a humongous snowball monster.

It can bring down a house, I think, or damage

the cars in its way. Are you still with me?

We want to be a positive movement that brings about

positive impact and influence to the people and places that

God's senses too. But you need momentum. Okay. Now, this

is the thing. When you find that your church or

nonprofit or charitable organization starts to lose steam, how people

stop coming, People start leaving, People start getting tired, people

start getting jaded, people start getting you know, doubtful, have

trust issues with leadership, want to step down, don't want

to come for the press survey is, don't want to

come for Sunday service don't want to serve, don't want

to volunteer. You know, people are not excited as they

were before. People are talking negatively more than positively. People

are complaining behind your backs. There are other check groups

are being created beyond the main check group because people

want to speak outside the main check group. And usually

is to complain, Usually is to murmur. Usually it's to

say something that they feel cannot be brought to light.

You know how the devil works, right, He will always

work in the darkness, And so if anything that you're

doing cannot be brought to light, it's already not right. Okay.

And there's a quote Inspirasion that says as long as

it can be in the light is usually right. Because

when you ask a question, can you bring what you're

doing into light and you say no, then it's possibly

of the time not right to do in the first place. Okay,

so the light will make it right. So the thing

is is very important. Okay. There comes a time in

a church where momentum you probably didn't understand you it

was momentum, So I'm sharing this with you. The momentum

starts to slow down, and if you're not careful, it

can even grind to a halt. And there are many

churches and many organizations and charitable companies, et cetera. You

know Christian work that may have even grounded to a halt,

and you are just existing. You're just in survival mode.

You have no bite, you have no burn, you have

no impact, you have no influence. You are easily forgettable

person or easily forgettable organization. People don't even know if

you're not around, and that should be one of the

goals of churches. Wherever you're planted, you know when you're

making impact that when you leave that community, when you

leave got the community. For example, when you leave to bank,

people know that you left, because when people don't even

know you left the front door, then you may have

to ask about your relevance and you may have to

ask about are you really making the difference. It's very

very important. Okay. People must feel your loss. Okay, this

is very very key. And I can think of a

few and you might even think of a few that

even if they didn't exist, you would have noticed, you

would have mine. Okay. And so you don't want to

be organization that and you don't want to be a

person like that. Yeah, you want to make yourself relevant,

You want to make yourself useful. You want to have

bite burned, and you want to have impact. You want

to have influence. You want to make the difference in

this world. Okay, you want to change the world, and

your life makes a difference. Your life has meaning to it, Okay,

has purpose to it, has power to it. All right,

this is very very important. So my take on this,

as the Lord opened my mind to it, is that

it is a momentum issue. Momentum issue. So it was

started by God, and God usually uses man and woman. Okay,

he use Abraham, he used Moses, he used Joshua, he

used Joseph, He used Daniel. Whenever God wants to do

something great in this world, he will choose a man

or a woman and raise him up. And sometimes that

man woman might even struggle with lack of confidence, with

lack of you know, knowledge, and all these kind of

things that will cause him to say no, Lord, No, Lord,

not mean Lord. Right. And we know there are few

characters in the Bible that say no, not me, right, no,

not me said eron right, I'm too small, I'm too young,

I'm too poor. Right, No, no, no. When God chooses you,

he will also finance you. He will also support you.

He will also make it happen. Okay, So don't say no, okay,

because miracles happen when people learn to say yes. As

soon as you say no, case close, you're as good

as dead, all right, you will never happen. But keep

saying yes to the Lord, because miracles happen, The supernatural happens,

the impossible becomes possible. As soon as you say no,

you shut the door to all that. Okay, you don't.

You don't even need to breathe, all right, But when

you say yes, you at least stand a chance, all right,

you will at least stand a chance, and you will

never know unless you try. Okay, this is very very important.

So what happens is that momentum starts to slow down

when people start saying no more, people say no, momentum

dies all right, And you don't want that. You don't

just want to have a name and a signboard, all right,

but no life in that shop. Okay, you don't want that. Okay.

We don't just want to exist, all right. We want

to make the difference. Okay. So I know I'm repeating myself,

but it's very important. Okay. I want to make sure

that you understand what trying to say. So leaders, I'm

talking to leaders now, please watch the momentum gauge. Okay,

especially when trouble is happening and all kinds of things

are happening. Okay, Now, some trouble is there just to

get you to, you know, go by faith and overcome that.

It's not Maybe it's not a sign that you're slowing down.

Maybe it's a sign that you have to pick up,

maybe the sign that you have to rise to another level.

Maybe the sign that you know what you're doing is good.

But God has got the all right, better things and

the best okay, and good can be enemy of the best.

If you settle for good, then you will never experienced

his best. So maybe sometimes God allows trouble and problems

and all that to take you to another level. Okay,

I understand that. But sometimes it happens like the things

I just mentioned earlier. All right, these people reactions and

people dragging their feet to church, and people saying no,

all right, and all these tiredness lie and I want

to give up, lie, I want to step down line

and all this kind of stuff. Okay, Now, those are

signs quite often that momentum is taking a beating, and

that the leaders need to rise at this time and pray,

seek God and ask God. I know it's a momentum problem.

And when there's no momentum, there is no movement. And

when there's no movement, there's no impact. Okay, I understand that.

So Lord, teach me what I must do to reinvigorate

this momentum to bring it back to speed. Are you

also with me? This is very important, and sometimes the

Holy Spirit will lead you it's time to pray. Sometimes

the Holy Spirit will say add fasting into it. Sometimes

the Holy Spirit will say it's time to take your

leaders out and encourage them. Do a cam, do a conference,

do an overnighter. It's time to maybe take some of

the key leaders out and talk to them. Maybe it's

time to get heart to heart, you know, listen to

the people share what they're really going through and then

get a chance to speak into their hearts. Maybe it's

time to make a change, maybe a major change. Maybe

sometimes it's small changes. And that's fine too, all right,

but the leaders must understand momentum. And the Lord has

anointed you as a leader and given you the ability

and the power to be able to make the difference.

So leaders, it starts with you, and you've got to

ask God, seek God. Okay, and if you spend an

hour with me, we could go through different things that

God has had to bring me through and you might

catch some ideas from there. But let me just give

you broad strokes for today that something needs to be done,

and something needs to be done quickly, and usually needs

to be done with people, not just strategies and not

just places. Or if we move to quota communing, or

if we move to move our venue, you know, from

this hotel to another hotel. No, you know, it's usually

not as simple as that. Usually momentum has got to

do with people's hearts. It's people at the end of

the day that we are talking about. And so if

you can get in, and you can, by the grace

of God, turn not just the situation but the spirit.

If you can turn the spirit, all right, And spirits

are usually men and women, and together they might create

the environment, which is also spirit. So before you can

tackle the spirit of the environment, the spirit of what

you're going through or people are so dull, people are

dragging their feet. Is a spirit really, I'm telling you

right now, is a spirit? Is a spiritual environment? Is

a spiritual situation? Okay, before you can turn around that

spiritual environment. And yes, by prayer and fasting it can

also help. But at the end of the day, bottom

line is men and women, and it starts with the leader.

And if the leader's spirit also has got to be

revived or checked or you know, repentance, whatever can, get

it done, get it done because it's coming in the

way of your momentum. Get it done. Repent get back

on track. All right, Worship God, praise Him, Pray like

you never pray before fast if you need to, all right,

and then deal one by one lovingly, but in truth

with the people around you, because truth continues be the

to be that that sets people free. All right. So

I've had a lot of those times. You know, we

call it Mordecai retreats. And if you ask any of

my leaders, they will tell you if they were there.

We go down to the details, We go down to

the matters of the heart. We go down to people

sharing about what is bothering them, and we go down

all the way to forgiveness and repentance. And I tell

you God has turned things around miraculously. It happened to

x TV, it happened to extreme, it happened to our

creative arm. You know, people are turning around one by one,

but it starts with the leader, and it starts with

people spirit And I tell you what, the spiritual atmosphere

will turn and momentum will begin to build again because

there will be excitement. People's hearts are happy, you know,

they are fulfilled, they're satisfied. They're not dragging their feet

there running now to church. They're saying, here I am,

you know, send me. They're saying, colm me in. And

they come back to that place that's what revival is

all about. They come back to their original love, their

first love, which is Jesus. You know, they come back

to that place whereby this is who they really are.

Because you know, it's so long that you know, you

have not talked about this, you have not dealt with it,

You've swept it under the carpet. You didn't even know

it was happening. You didn't ask God, you know, to

show you what was happening. And so for too long

people were just going astray, all right, doing their own thing,

and it was tearing the church apart, killing the momentum,

and destroying the movement. Listen, ex church is a movement,

not just a church. And we are moving wherever the

Holy Spirit tells us, all right, and many times there

are a lot of things that tries to stop us.

One of the things I want to tell you is

this faith is one of the biggest keys to momentum.

That's why I said to you earlier. People continue to

say yes, Lord, and many, if not all, of the

yeses are by faith. People. I'm telling you right now,

there are a lot of you who have said yes

without knowing what's in store, without knowing what the cost is,

and even if you knew the cost, you don't even

know how you were going to pay it. Are you

all still with me? All the leaders are nodding their

head even here in the studio because you know what

it means, and you say, yes, you know there was

a cost, and some of you even know how cost

it would be. You just knew it was a cost.

And and you know some of you just you know,

use words like our let's just wring it, let's just try,

let's just see what happens. Let's take it one step

at a time, right, and see how far you've come.

You continue to say yes, not faith, my dear friends

and my dear respected on leaders out there. Faith, And

I tell you what, the devil will try to kill

faith with unbelief and doubt. You see, he's trying to

create trust issues with leadership, so that if you you

have trust issues now with me, for example, then you

will also have doubt with know what I'm saying or

pastor cannot say the next five years is d R

E M. But you know I don't trust him that much,

and so I therefore I doubt his dram and I

no doubt will begin to open your heart to deeper

unbelief issues. Uh, and sooner or later your faith will die. Uh.

And it's not just faith that helps with momentum, it's

also faithfulness. And when people stop being faithful, or when

their faithfulness starts to weigh down and becomes conditional, what

happens is that you don't because movement and momentum is

ongoing things, you see. So that's what faithfulness is. Faithfulness

is going on even when the times are hard. Keep going,

even when you don't fully understand, keep going, even when

the money is low, keep going, even when other people

don't want to go with you. Keep going faithfulness. Can

you imagine of all the English words, of all the

thousands of English words, God chose two for your reward,

Well done, my good and faithful. Good just means that

when God sees you, he sees himself. Why because Jesus

said to the rich young ruler, why do you call

me good? Only God is good? But if God can

call you good, means he sees God in you. He

sees Jesus in you. Many of you have heard his

teaching before. So when Jesus sees you in heaven, he says,

well that I good. He sees himself in you. But

then another word, just another word, two words, only good

and faithful. This is how important faithfulness is to God.

You know, if if we read the word and he says,

well done, my good and good looking servant, all of

you will spend time in front of the mirror more today. Yes,

you will spend time with a plastic surgery. Yes, because

it matters to God. Because when you come to God,

he will say, we are not my good and good

looking servant. Right, No, you don't. You don't because it's

not the reward. He didn't say, well done, my good

and really good looking body servant, or the otherwise. You

will spend a lot more time in the gym, a

lot more time, because he's gonna look at your six packs.

He's gonna look at your biceps, upon your biceps, he's

gonna look at your chest size. He's gonna look. Okay, okay,

so you we will spend hours in the gym because

we want to hear God say well done, my good

and good body servant. All right, good physics, serve it. Now.

I'm not saying all these are not important. Okay, have

your exercise, eat will look good for God. Okay, dress

up well, but hey, listen, you should spend more of

your time and your resources try your best to be

as faithful as possible because that is your reward. But

listen again, Cathellen. Now, the word faithful starts with the

word faith, and the reason why many cannot be faithful

anymore is because they lost faith. Divorces happen the wife

and the husband cannot be faithful to the marriage anymore

because somewhere along the line, their love for each other

was killed. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy.

So this is what happens in the marriage. Suddenly the

husband lies to the wife, for example, and the wife

found out, and something was robbed from her heart. You

know what was robbed trust? And because the enemy was

able to rob trust, she doesn't trust her husband as

much as she used to because she lied to her

once twice, three times maybe found out. So the enemy

stole trust, which is very important the marriage, and then

he kills the love from that trust being lost, he

goes for the kill. He kills the dream in you.

Maybe you were hurt by a friend, so somebody was

stolen in your heart. But the enemy is not going

to stop as stealing, he's gonna kill Suddenly you say no,

I don't want to be doing this anymore because you

were hurt. Easy, but actually you were men to sing,

you were men to play the guitar, you were men

to preach, you, men to you know, do a talk

show like this. But because the enemy stole something and

you got so disappointed, now he goes for your dream.

He kills that dream in you. Okay, I've said it before.

You might have sickness, but don't let sickness have you.

So somebody's even sickness can come and then it steals

something in you, right, it steals your health. But he

doesn't have to kill your dream. So the enemy comes

to steal, kill, and finally, if he can kill your dream,

he will destroy your destiny. Don't let the devil get

that far. Yes he can come and steal. Yes, you've

been hurt, you've been offended. Don't allow the devil to

take you to a place where he kills something. So

that's what happens. Divorce happens way before that because the

enemy stole, stole trust, and now he kills the wife

is having less and less love for the husband kills

the love and finally destroys the marriage you with me.

Same thing with momentum. He steals, kills, he destroys faith faithfulness.

Faithfulness is required for every momentum and every movement. But

faithfulness can't continue without faith. And two persons struck down

twenty in the first killing. That's what I call it.

Ten times blessing, Daniel one twenty extras. You know this

verse well, Daniel one twenty ten times better. I want

to declare that over all extraches and over all the

churches that are represented here in this podcast, all right,

those of you are watching precious leaders pass us elders

ten times better blessing in Jesus name. And he took

two Remember the word of God to Joshua. Be strong, Joshua,

and very courageous. It takes courage to rebuild momentum. Courage,

all right? And then what happened when they heard an uproar? Yes,

God is gonna cause and uproar. Okay, there's gonna be

a sound from heaven. And the people who are down

and depressed and lacking and having nothing to fight with

except one sword in Saul's hands, they heard that uproar,

and something stirred up within them. Ladies and gentlemen, brothers

and sisters, hear me and hear me, Well, something is

gonna stir up in the hearts of your leaders, stir

up in the hearts of your partners, your members. It's

gonna stir up. It's gonna be a work of the

Holy Spirit, and they're gonna be like another man. Complaints

will fling out the window, and then courage will come,

confidence in the Lord. And the army, which I think

was only six hundred men. I've read that Israel had

hundreds of thousands before, but now it's dwindled, and your

church has dwindled down to that many. But I'll tell

you right now, as Jonathan said it, God can save

by many or by few. It's God. And the beautiful

thing that it also mentioned in that scripture is that

the Israelites were coming out of their caves. Do you

know that in times like these people go into their

hiding and hideouts and caves, into a place of darkness,

and they're scared, and they're shivering, and they're not sure

about life. The uproar not only stirred the army, the

remaining army, and many of you only have a remaining

remnant of leadership of people in your church. But listen

to me and listen well, God will cause an uproar,

an army will stirred up, and people were coming out

of their caves. I declared it over all our church plans,

and people in hiding, really really talented people, really really

gifted people are all in hiding, not me, not now,

scared of commitment, scared of all kinds of things. But

they will be scared no more. I'm prophesying now, and

they will come out of their caves. And I tell

you what a great, mighty victory and deliverance was a

chief for God's people that day. And it started with

two that worked with God on rebuilding the momentum, and

the momentum became a movement, and the movement had great impact.

What's your dream? As I close this part of the podcast,

what's your dream? Don't let the devil kill that dream.

Know that you have been raised by God for such

a time as this. You are that Jonathan, and God

will provide you an armor bearer or two. Have faith, rise,

be strong and very courageous, go in and start to

move things with the leading of the Holy Spirit and

by the grace of God, you will start to see

God multiply your little efforts. It will be God taking over,

God working a miracle, and the miracle will turn into

a momentum. The momentum will turn into a movement with me,

and your dream will become your destiny and even greater things.

According to Ephicians treat twenty and now unto him who's

able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could

ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us,

I speak into the power that works in you. Leaders.

I'm closing my eyes as I'm praying for all of you.

There is power that needs to be awakened in you.

And according to that power that's within you, Leaders, in

Jesus' name, I pray that you are rise, awaken, and

arise and begin to address what is it that God

is showing you. And attack whateverver it is that the

devil has tried to bring your way, and go for gold,

Go for God. Go give your best to God, and

God will do the rest. I had one more thing

to say in the Christian life in church. You see,

if I had a ball in my hand and I

pushed it on this table, if this table is flat,

it will move. If the table is you know, shifted

on one end, it will move even faster. We wish

that life was like that flat. We wish that life

was like that, you know, going downstream. But it's not

always like that. In fact, Christianity is usually uphill and

uphill kills momentum. So leaders, be aware of the uphills

in your ministry, of the uphills in your life, and

be very focused, be very sensitive that it is the

uphills that you need more attention, more help to push

that uphill, and don't wait for it to stop and

start rolling down neckwards. Leaders listen every big event, every

big achievement, every big victory, every big challenge, every whatever. Okay,

ask God, how do I deal with this God? How

do I enter this storm? How do I prepare myself?

How do I prepare my people? How do I talk

to them? How do I maybe even include a rest

time so that they can rest even in the midst

of that in the eye of a storm, just rest

and sharpen their ex A lot of people, a lot

of leaders, go blinded and thought that the same momentum

will carry you up the uphill. No, okay, so don't

go blinded into uphill. Okay, Now with every uphill there

will be also a time of relief where it will

either go back flat or it will go down. And

then I'll tell you what, You're gonna enjoy another season

of growth, all right. And in fact, the way you

deal with uphill will determine the way you go downhill. Yes,

so every church that handles uphill well will then enjoy

the next season of either flat right or I should

say easy, or even more momentum going down in a

good way whereby you're saying, wow, you know so much uphill.

When I was three hundred and because I dealt with

uphill well, I dealt with people's hearts well, I dealt

with faith well, I dealt with prayer well. And all that.

You make sure you have more people pushing that car up.

You know why. You You may have pushed that car

with two people on a flat. Now when you see

an uphill, you go need to call more back up. Yes,

so now ten people are pushing the car up, so

you need to push it with more strength, more focused,

more wisdom uphill. And I guarantee you the downhill easy

days will come by. But the beautiful thing is. You

might have started with three hundred people going uphill, but

then in you handle it well when you pass that

that point and you and and you go down and

it gets easier. You don't. You don't start with three hundred.

You might start with six hundred, one thousand. That's what

it happens. God always takes us to another level, another level.

So handle your uphills well, because uphills can also kill momentum. Okay,

you don't want momentum to stop. You want to keep going.

But leaders, may the Lord ground your wisdom to handle

the uphills in your life and in your ministry. Handle

it well in God's leading and guidance. And I tell

you what you will. You will not be where you were.

You will be where you ought to be. You will

be having it easier. Your momentum would have grown greater,

your movement would have become more impactful, and more people

would have joined you, More leaders would have risen out.

You know, it's just going to be happier days, easier days. Okay,

if you can handle your uphills well, you will enjoy

your downhills really really well.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. If you're

keen to get the phone message, head on over to

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We're believing that this week is going to be a

good week ahead for you. God bless