Feel Overlooked? Your Role Matters to God | The Critical Partnership by Ps. Ray Rubi | LAS VEGAS, NM CONF

When you study moves of God in the past, when you study revivals, there is a pattern that emerges as you consider the beginning of that move of God or a revival.

It grows in its influence and then it peaks and then it begins to fade and either vanishes altogether or morphs into something else.

something less than the revival that it once was.

And this cycle is about 40 years in length.

From the time it begins to where it grows in influence, and I'm talking about genuine moves of God, from the time it begins to fade, or as I said, morph into something that it wasn't.

And that span of 40 years about tracks with the life, the lifespan of the one who founded that move of God.

And if that's so, then I have a question for us tonight.

And that question is this, why has our fellowship defied the odds? Why is our fellowship not just survived, through that 40 year threshold, but actually accelerated to new heights.

Even as we were dealing with the aftermath of a worldwide pandemic.

We're at a place now where our fellowship stands around 4,300 churches in about 120 nations.

Right now we have 59 Bible conferences.

around the world.

And most of those 59 Bible conferences began after the 40-year mark, including this Bible conference.

Why have we defied the odds? Well, the answer is this.

Because very early on, the founder of this fellowship, Pastor Wayman Mitchell, had a revelation.

And he would preach this revelation in those early Bible conferences in Prescott.

He preached about what he called the dignity of the local church.

And he talked about how that the New Testament is about the New Testament church, the ecclesia, the gathering that God gathers when people get saved.

He puts them together as it pleases him.

And he would talk about how that parachurch organizations and large denominations have obscured the local church, that the local church has lost its emphasis, but the Bible pattern from the book of Acts is the local church, the dignity of the local church.

And the idea that God can do everything and anything that he can do, wants to do in any local congregation anywhere with any people.

And the second revelation is that every local church has a responsibility for the world.

Every local congregation has a responsibility for world evangelism.

World evangelism is intended to be a priority for every congregation, large or small, no matter where they are.

The dignity of the local church and a vision for world evangelism, and those are the two things that have sustained us Those are the two things that have kept us through that 40-year threshold.