What is RIHOP doing in 2011?

In my 3 years of being on staff in RIHOP, I haven’t seen the Lord move quite like this before. There are many exciting things coming up for 2011. I want to mention a few briefly here for the sake of general knowledge, but I also want to provide you with an opportunity to give into some of our initiatives for the upcoming year.

Introducing RisingCry:

RisingCry is a discipling ministry of RIHOP focused on training believers in a lifestyle of prayer and fasting. Believers will be encouraged to pursue the Lord in the lifestyle of the Kingdom (healing, signs and wonders), intimacy with God (Father/Bridegroom), End-times, and other important topics for our times. Meetings will begin in January. All are encouraged to attend!

The three “buzz words” that describe 2011 for us will be:

Intimacy, Intercession, and Israel. Within the coming year, we are working on developing an internship focused on intimacy with God, a lifestyle of intercession and the place of Israel in the heart of God and His purposes in the earth. There are many more details here, but we will keep you updated.

Linking arms with different ministries:

Richmond316

This is an initiative divinely put together with different city leaders in which we will be focusing on four geographic locations of the city of Richmond bringing prayer, evangelism, preaching/healing meetings and discipleship. The first location will be the East End of Richmond moving to the South Side, and North and West as discerned from the Lord. For more information and how you can be involved email: info@rihop.com

YWAM-VA

YWAM-VA has written time in our prayer room into their Discipleship Training. We believe this is a beginning picture of the prayer movement and the missions movement working together. The Great Commission will not go forth without day and night prayer. We are really excited to be able to impart into one another the necessity of both prayer and global evangelism.

The Prayer Room is open and available to all to worship and encounter Jesus daily. The ministry of RIHOP will not go forth without financial support. Would you consider supporting me in this season? Your support will not just keep the lights on, your support will go toward the work of the Kingdom in partnership with other ministries in this city. You can donate via paypal below or email me personally: shawnjarrard@gmail.com.

War on Christmas

I have a confession to make. I love traditional Christmas. I love the rich hymns like: “O Come O Come Immanuel” and “O Holy Night.” I imagine a Christmas Eve church service with a pipe organ droning and choir singing at the top of their lungs. I imagine a pastor preaching the 1st coming of Jesus Christ using the Old Testament prophecies and all of the glory found in the Son of God coming to earth as a helpless babe to live as a Man and die for the sins of the world. Then the message would continue to the King Jesus coming again to fully establish the Kingdom of God on earth with an invitation for those that do not know Jesus to ask Him into their lives.

The other side to my confession is that I hate trying to reclaim Christmas in our culture. The world was different 100 years ago. Nations across the globe celebrated the birth of Christ. Saying, “Merry Christmas,” was not offensive but almost expected. Even from a secular perspective, there was an honor of Christmas in some way or another. We are living in a global culture that is generally “post-Christian.” Christmas is at best some magical day that we ought to carry in our hearts. It becomes something about family or giving to the poor or something like that. Decorations are about a fat man in a red suit, and that’s about all that Christmas means.

In our global culture, Christmas has become un-Christian. I can only believe that this trend will continue and I do not believe it is the job of the Church to try to win the war on Christmas. Why should we battle in the flesh what is already won in the Spirit? Could there be something higher to our calling to preach the gospel than to “put Christ in Christmas?” What I mean is that, instead of having a play of what Christmas is really all about; we simply preach Christ and Him crucified.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is power. We preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world so confused about what happened 2,000 years ago when God came to earth as a Man. The Gospel is power unto salvation, anything less will only keep a lost world in confusion. Let’s preach Jesus during this season.

Exciting News and Opportunity to Give

This week I have a meeting with a group of investors in Richmond who are interested in funding Legacy Fellowship International, where I serve as associate pastor. They just want to fund church plants and particularly a church presence in Shockoe Bottom, and they are really interested in our work within Legacy. This meeting will be on November 4th. When they sign on-board with us, it might be a few months until they begin sending checks because of organizational things. I’m praying that they will give us a boost amount to start to hold us over for a few more months.

Then my girlfriend Jamie and I are meeting with 5 business couples on November 13th to invite them to support us. We aren’t quite sure if they will give and if so, how much they will give, but they usually give $500 at a time and are quite wealthy. They are very interested in RIHOP. I’m praying that they would commit.

So I know that funding is coming! In the meantime, I need your help.

1. I’m trying to sell my acoustic guitar amp (that I don’t use) for $125 on craigslist. you can email this link to anyone you know who is interested: http://richmond.craigslist.org/msg/2006859133.html

2. Support me with a one-time gift of any amount via paypal. go to this link and click donate on my blog: belovedpeter.blogspot.com this will lead you to my paypal where you can donate. Checks made out to RIHOP are also accepted. You can click donate on this site also.

3. Also, you can partner with me on a four-month commitment of any amount until I have a few more financial partners. Checks made out to RIHOP are accepted.

Til next time folks!

Introducing Legacy Fellowship International

Did you know that I am a part of a new church plant in Richmond, Virginia? It’s actually quite different from most churches, even most church plants. Most of you know that I’ve been a part of the Richmond International House of Prayer as a full-time “urban missionary.” This is my favorite thing that I do. I serve on staff as the Prayer Room Director; my job is primarily to set people in place as “urban missionaries.” As Prayer Room Director, I spend time sitting before the Lord in prayer and worship, lead prayer meetings, and teach on fasting, prayer, the prophetic, and holiness of heart. I have now taken on a new role as the Devotional Life Pastor of Legacy Fellowship International.

Legacy Fellowship’s goal is to “disciple disciplers.” In other words, we want to disciple believers who will disciple believers (Eph. 4:11-13). This new church plant serves as an evangelistic arm of the ministry of RIHOP, providing a landing pad for not-yet-saved and new believers. Through interactive Bible studies and home fellowship, along with other members of the church teaching under the direction of Senior Pastors Matthew and Sherrie Moore, we believe that everyone is called to be a missional believer fulfilling the Great Commandment and the Great Commission (Matt. 22:37-40; Matt. 28:18-20).

The goal of the five-fold ministry (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers) is to see the body of Christ raised up, doing the works of ministry. What is often misunderstood is that the five-fold ministry is like a foundation upon which believers in a fellowship are built (Eph. 2:20-22). Knowing that people are called into different ministries in many different ways, we want to see believers winning the lost, healing the sick, prophesying, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers (Matt. 10:8).

As a pastor of Legacy and urban missionary with RIHOP, I live on the financial support of others. Would you pray about supporting me financially on a monthly basis? You can make checks payable to RIHOP or you can donate by my paypal account below.

Email me for my address if you want to donate by check.

Bless you!

My Bible is my coloring book

I just got back from Illinois (given a few hours for sleep). I was there to celebrate my grandmother’s life and say my final goodbye’s to her. The week was busy, hard, but also really peaceful. I think for me the hardest part was going through the actual service. I have had a eulogy prepared in my head since January 2009. I was blessed to be able to share it.

I began meditating on this when I was on a 21-day fast on something of a personal retreat. In the dead of winter, I began reading my Bible for hours in the morning before going to the prayer room. I set myself to read through 10 chapters of the New Testament daily. Set with a good coffee and highlighters, I gave myself to the Word. I loved the New King James Version of the Bible and as I read through Luke 2 and the traditional Christmas story, I was reminded of how my grandmother always, always had to read that chapter before our Christmas dinner. No matter what arguments were going on in the house, she would sit and read aloud the story of the birth of Jesus and remind us of what Christmas meant. As I sat in the cold house, reading the words that I was so accustomed to, it dawned on me that every one of my family members has had opportunity to hear of Jesus.

Not just during Christmas, but consistently, she would talk about Jesus. She was constantly in the Word, always going to some church service. Parents want the best for their children, and sometimes in her approach she offended people. Nonetheless, her broken attempts resulted in everyone in her family hearing about Jesus and I think God would say to her, “Good job, you did well. You opened the door for your family to hear Me.” And because of her, my family is marked by God. Jesus wins.

She left a legacy and good fruit. Blessings for the hungry.

On a lighter note, last Saturday I thoroughly enjoyed a good ole fashioned Americana picnic in a park by a lake. Under the shade of trees, with the grill going and all Illinois family together, we all got good rest and refreshing of heart.

Awaken the Dawn…I will.

During May 12th-16th, RIHOP traveled up north to Fredericksburg to take part in Awaken the Dawn. It truly was more than a conference. Speakers provoked a generation to live as Nazarites (Numbers 6). Of course, the idea of the Nazarite isn’t so much that they had long hair and didn’t drink wine or eat grapes. They were set apart to God. They would give up legitimate pleasures for the sake of being set apart to God. Filled with radical, holy love for Jesus, these “set apart ones” become voices in their spheres of influence of something better than the American Dream. There is a hope that is better, a love that is stronger. They live for the love that is better than wine, better than life  (Song. 1:2; Ps. 63:3).  Each speaker built upon the theme of the previous speaker, mostly by accident since they didn’t have hardly any contact with the other speakers.

I had the privilege of watching as the Lord met hundreds of young and old alike, drawing them into a lifestyle of consecration to God in fasting and prayer. One staff member said it like this: “It was like they were reading my journal and then talked about it.” At one point, 3 staff members all had the same vision of flying through the stars toward heaven. We found this out later as we each discussed the experience. It was so cool to say: “oh, no way! you saw that too?! Jesus is so good!” In all of the fun and exciting things in the conference, this phrase has stuck in my head: “its unto justice released in the earth.”

Now that the conference is over, my heart’s desire is to see what was imparted get sent like shockwaves through the streets of Richmond, Virginia. There is some awesome, exciting stuff happening here! Whenever you used to drive through Richmond, you would see spotlights shining into the night sky. Following those lights to their source you would find a Gentlemen’s Club right off highway 95. We have been praying for Club Velvet for over 3 years to close its doors. We had received a prophetic word that the battle for this city was between two “Moore’s.” Sam Moore, who owned Velvet and Matthew and Sherrie Moore, founders and directors of RIHOP. As we pressed in through prayer, Sam Moore had to shut his doors. My prayer is that healing would arise in that place that abode death and seduction for so long. I pray for Sam Moore to know the mercy and love of Jesus (Jesus did it to Saul, making him Paul, its not beyond reach!). I pray for the dancers, the clients. Let healing of hearts break forth to know Jesus.

We are seeing people getting saved, hearts coming alive in the Word. I have heard 3 testimonies of supernatural provision in the last week. People are donating computers and Bibles, but most of all hearts are excited about encountering Jesus.

We are also seeing connections with other ministries. C28, a Christian clothing store is now helping us advertise our internship. The regional director for the Virginia stores walked into RIHOP yesterday, asking us to help promote the store. He took over 100 flyers for our 30-day internship in July to place on the counter of his store. He left asking, “Can I invite Christian young people to come? Maybe sign onto a worship team?” Of course I said yes.

Here are two things to be in prayer for RIHOP: The Immersed Internship in July and the First Annual RIHOP Walk-a-thon. Immersed is a 30-day internship dedicated to raising up messengers who will be a voice in their community as they devote themselves to a lifestyle of prayer and fasting. These voices in the wilderness will go forth after 30-days of immersion in the RIHOP prayer room with a vision of loving Jesus and reaching their spheres of influence for Him. We are also doing a walk-a-thon to raise money for inner-city schools. This is an amazing opportunity for us to serve the community. We will be walking a 5k as we pray over different places through the city.

I want to leave you with some ways that you can give toward my ministry as an urban missionary at RIHOP. The exciting things that I’ve written only happen as they are financed. As a pastor of a new church plant and missionary, I live on the financial support of others. No gift is too great, no gift is too small. Would you consider becoming a partner with me in this ministry? you can email me at shawnjarrard@gmail.com for more details on how to give. Donations are tax deductible.

God bless you.

Merry Christmas!

Have you ever had something you were hoping for, but it never seemed to materialize? Imagine what it would be like for your fathers to tell the stories of angels, God visiting them in power and giving great promises that they pass down to you. Imagine being taken out of slavery, given a kingdom where nations would fear your people and come to your people to worship your God. Everyone would want to be like you. Everyone would want to be chosen like you. Imagine what it would be like to say that God is with you, and then He backs that up by demonstrating His power. Imagine a kingdom of such immense wealth that gold and silver were as common as the dust of the roads you walked. Imagine losing it all in what seemed like a moment of time because of persistent disobedience to the established law. Then after years of silence, when no trace of the promise was manifest under the heavy yoke of oppression; oh, when all hope was lost, whispers of hope arise in the deep darkness.

Yes, in darkness or deep darkness where only stars shine bright, the glory of the Lord will arise. Stories of angels visiting young and old alike, bringing again the promise of a seed of a woman, whose name is “God with us,” and “who will save our people from our sins.” The woman cries out in labor and in pain to give birth, and she brings forth a Son who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron.” Arise and shine, for the Glory of the Lord has risen upon you and every promise, every hope is found in this One.

This One who being in every way God, didn’t dignify Himself enough to stay in heaven and let us die in ignorance, being found as a baby in a stable, who had to be fed, changed, carried, who had to grow up like any other human being, feel all of our pain and suffer the most unthinkable and unmentionable death; this One God super-exalted to His right hand and given Him the name above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This One is Jesus. This One is Hope.

So I say to you this Christmas, Arise and Shine, for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

(Isaiah 60:1; Revelation 12:1-6; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 2).

Traditional Christmas

This year is different than most. It comes as a blessing I think. Along with Christmas decorations and music in malls, commercials and movies on TV, I am becoming more aware of how much I really love tradition. In light of so many years in church trying to be non-conformist and different in thinking than the traditional church culture, it seems that the more that I study Christ the more I find myself honoring the traditions of my past. I love the family celebrations, I would love a huge amount of snow and abundance of Christmas movies other than the one TBS replays for 24 hours, although I could watch that movie once during the Christmas season. All of my yuletide favorites however, don’t measure up to my desire to exalt Christ Jesus during this His advent.

Now I know that the Christmas season is not really the accurate date of the birth of Jesus Christ, but being celebrated as such for centuries and adopted as such by the majority of the Western Church, this season is especially dear to my heart. This is the time when Christ is exalted in hymns, songs, church plays, and sermons with the only other time of such intensified focus being the Resurrection season. So I don’t really pay attention to people who would rather it be celebrated in a different time of the year.

Back to tradition. I recently bought Handel’s Messiah from iTunes. Its a classical oratorio citing several Old and New Testament references to Christ, celebrating His advent (His first coming) and proclaiming His Second Coming. I don’t know of any other work so thoroughly done. Originally it wasn’t meant for the Christmas season, but has now become known for it because of the prophecies sung throughout it having to do with Christ coming to earth. I love taking Christmas hymns and playing them with my guitar or perhaps with a full band, but there is something to the majesty of a pipe organ droning in a cathedral with full choirs singing about the God-Man Christ Jesus. I know that Christmas is an awesome opportunity for people to come to Christ, but maybe its more of a worship service that we can bring instead. What I mean is, maybe in exalting Jesus in worship and just loving and declaring Him in this season, people will be more drawn to Him than trying to take out the tradition to make Him relevant.

Of course we could just make this a daily thing, studying the God-Man Christ Jesus. May your heart burn for Him. He’s beautiful.

Songwriters and Souls

I recently picked up the book, The Latent Power of the Soul, by Watchman Nee. Although I have not fully read it, in it I saw that he laid out various ways we can live out of our soul, not out of our spirit man. To understand this requires some clarification. Humans are made of three components: spirit, soul, and body. All three sort of work together but require the proper alignment. Really, that’s the heart of the matter.

I’ve found something that scares me. I just bought a new CD by a Christian artist and I love it. I love the flow. I love the sacrament of finding God in everyday simple things like doing dishes, sitting with friends over coffee, and so on that this artist portrays. No, its not the “deep” worship I’m used to, but its like the way Jesus doesn’t make things complex to those who are hungry. You see, when Jesus spoke in parables He made truth so easy anyone could understand it if they were spiritually hungry. At the same time, Jesus spoke in parables to make truth hard to understand for those seeking to find its meaning through their souls. Our spirits are the interpretive grid and are dysfunctional apart from the Holy Spirit inside of us bringing to us revelation. Jesus gives this to us.

My fear is that as a Christian musician myself, I’m prey to operating in, and ministering out of the soul instead of the spirit. I’m shocked by how easy this can come. It is so easy to create lyrics from my heart, without connecting to the Holy Spirit, put with it a catchy melody line and be swoon away by the soul. The more dangerous part is doing this to Jesus’ Bride! The career of a “Christian” musician never really needs to be terminated, even if you drop off the “Christian” part of it. I think we’ve seen this in our culture quite a bit with bands that start on a Christian label and then move into the secular arena. The problem is that their faith stays with the Christian label almost like it was borrowed from the beginning to win their success and fan base. It is always possible to operate out of our soul apart from Christ. People may follow us because we have the right lyrics, the right sounds, the right appearance, but the matter is our hearts. The Pharisees were chastised for having lips that draw near to God, but their hearts are far from Him. They were experts in appearing spiritual, but to be honest, to me that doesn’t seem so hard. To appear spiritual comes quite natural to us because I believe we are operating on such a low level of spirituality in the West as it is. It is changing and I want to change from glory to glory.

So how do I walk in light of that reality? I’m keeping the fear before me, because it is not an evil fear. If I have the fear of the LORD, then I can walk rightly. Really fearing Him, trembling because He’s not wrong and sees everything. Awestruck by beauty, goodness, life, passion, and hope in Him. My job is to say one thing, only one thing: what He says. I have great promises of songs that can unlock hearts and set people free and I want them. I want the shekinah glory of God to show up when I sing my worship song to Him. But I get that by opening up my spirit to His Holy Spirit, asking for revelation of the Word of God to move my soul (mind, will, emotions), and I’ll walk that out in the flesh (in my body). This is the only way to stay sane, to live with God as the center.

As the pressures of life, the weight of the world, the darkness of the present age seek to choke out the spirit of devotion and intimacy for the sake of productivity, performance and looking clean, I want my spirit awake. Really, John the Baptist was totally unattractive. His “melody” wasn’t popular. His lyrics didn’t fit the day. “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand?” Then walks in Jesus saying the same thing. Imagine their parents. “Ok, we’ve waited 30 years for those promises around John and Jesus’ births and this is what they come out with? I was hoping for something a little more…substantial? These guys aren’t really ‘winners,’ Jesus doesn’t even have an army to take the king out and start His reign.” In other words, nothing in their lives looked promising. Yes, renewal, yes, healings, yes, signs, yes cryptic sayings, yes to the beauty of God’s word striking our hearts, but the package was so unattractive, so despised. We can miss it because the greatness that really counts isn’t measured in this age.

So what do Christian artists do? The Wilderness. Go to the wilderness. Be ignored, be unheard and undiscovered. Play in secret knowing that you move the Father’s heart. Therein lies your success, security and hope. Security in this age is nothing before the God of fire who burns in passion for you. And check out Don Potter’s Facing the Wall CD, performance is dead.

Battle for the Eyes

I’m pretty sure I’ve spent way too much time on the computer. Why is it that we have to stare at a screen? I mean really. What was life before TV, movies, video games, computers, iPODs, or phones? Yes, books were around and one could get lost in a book. But that only lasts until the final chapter and is great just before a nap or bedtime. What about before there were books? Could it be that our eyes are starving to see something that we can’t see? Someone we can’t see? What were we created to see? My drooping and glazed over eyes will endure my brain’s relentless flow of thought. I’m pretty sure I’ve been at this moment before as well. Second time around I suppose?

Adam was the first man ever created. God breathed into Adam’s nostrils and he became a living being. What did Adam first smell? The Breath of God. What did Adam first see? The face of God. Adam literally walked with God, talked with God with no hinderance at all. Adam’s day was filled with working with God having dominion over the earth. “Hey Adam, I have something for you. Would you help me name all these animals I made for you?” I imagine the Lord would say to him. “Adam, I have a something for you.” Adam’s eyes grow wide and his mouth drops to the ground as Eve walks forth. “You created me for this? I’m like this to You? I’m made for you the way Eve is made for me, I mean, we are made for You because we are Your Bride?” They walked with God unashamed. They saw God’s face, daily.

So I ask what are we made for? Its coming back, “Behold, I am making all things new!” the Father shouts from the throne. One day we will see God face to face and walk before Him on this earth completely unashamed in daily communion with Him. It is already your destiny and all you have to do is say yes to it. It’s already been earned for you, have you entered in yet? I feel like the one who stood before Jesus and said, “I believe, but help my unbelief!”

What am I doing staring at a screen, engaging my heart in the frivolous and worthless chatter of the sons of this age? Why should I subject myself to the sight of this age? Interestingly, when Adam and Eve fell into sin, they “saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes.”

We are made to see God. I’m going to stare at what is real. The problem is that its easier to keep my eyes shut and chase my imagination in the darkness with everyone else. I lift my eyes up, I press in; because my sight will be restored in full when I see Him fully.