A Place

I want to create a place where everyone can live with hope in their hearts.

Recently I been writing a great deal about my dream and vision for the future. New Orleans is the goal and a place I wish to bring hope, yet is more then that. I say this because I know as someone called to move around and share life with others I have to carry these things with me to give. A place where everyone can live with hope. I am reading about such places. In Philly there is the Simple way and in Calcutta there is Mother Teresa's commune. They are poor and they work hard to make it. Still people give of themselves and what they have for each other in community. I burn, I burn for such places, for such Christianity that places more value on the person meeting Christ through relationship then through service or program. I am not saying that these things are not good and well.

I have been thinking what is Radical? I have come to the conclusion that it is Love. Yeah, you would say "but I show love. I go to church. I feed the poor. I give to charity." And I say good. But have you sat and talked with the poor and heard their story as you shared a meal? Have you simply just had a conversation with your neighbor? Have you stopped to help someone change a tire or picked up someone walking in the heat to help them get somewhere. Revolutionary not really. Dangerous, yeah it just might be. Still I assure you this is not for the tame at heart. This will not make you popular or powerful and not rich. Most likely people will think your MAD! Yep crazy.

Still I would rather be crazy and live one day of community then to live the same way I have been living. I am not saying this will be easy. Even I struggle with old patterns and teachings of fear. Still I will begin to strive for this in my own life as not to call others to something that I myself am not doing.

The Emergence of a Voice

It is no surprise for me to tell you all that I am a thinker. I take an idea or thought and in my head I take it apart to its basic parts and then I put it back together and then take it apart. I look at it from different angles positions. I reform it into different things and then put it back into it original form. Like some mad inventor getting lost in his work that is me with a thought or an idea.

Earlier I have shared these disastrous brainstorms in all there Glory on here. Yet out of such things a voice is born. Like a child taking his first cry peoples lives are irrevocably changed. I might not reach more then just the few people who read my stuff on facebook, I might end up even more obscure who knows but while I have this blank piece of paper in this notebook on here to type on I will share my brain-mess with anyone who would partake in the abject oddity of my mind.

The Birthing of a Voice comes for the longing of the Dreams of the Heart.

I am sticking to that. You see my as I spend time in prayer, reading books, writing, service and helping others with their dreams my own dream has developed. This is not my only dream I am talking about but just the next step in my life. What I would like to spend time doing and all of it was birthed in the the longing dream of my heart.

I quote my friend and teacher Jason Hamlin "Pay attention to what makes you Angry, what makes you Cry , what makes you Long. These are usually what God has you here to do something about."

For me my heart cries out for a place to belong. Do not get me wrong there are places I can go and be loved on but a place to belong is something more. A place to belong it is a Refuge of the heart. It host a family where your accepted in for all you peculiarities wether they fit with everyone else's or not. It is a place where one can develop dreams safely and you know when someone corrects you or disagree with you that it is to help develop you and your vision not the other's agenda. Its a place to laugh together and to cry together or just be left alone. Its dinner around tables discussing stories, or going out into the streets to dance for no other reason then dancing.

I have had visions of broken cogs (Army of Cogs) that bring together those who not only just don't dress like they fit but breathe, think and are completely different. These are those on the fringe pressed out by the clockwork machine that is society. These are the street gypsies of today and my dream is have a Refuge for them. A Citadel if you will in New Orleans. A bow, a sling shot, a launch pad that creates comets in the heavens of society out of a forgotten city. A army, a family, and community of people whose stories my not be ever fill the shelves of men but surely will fill the libraries of heaven.

My voice will cry in the street come all you who are misunderstood and find your true identity. Find your dreams. Create your sound, Have a family, leave and inheritance put your finger prints cityscapes of America and the world. The Lord invites you to his house.

The Kingdom over Chow Mien

Yesterday we came together as a family for dinner. Something that is rare to get all the staff together for. Still Spiritual father David Andrade had called us together to encourage, get to know and invest in us as Spiritual Children. The idea of Family is something thing that even I have mixed feelings about.

It is no secret come from a broken family and that my relationship with my father is not a shinning example. If one is to be honest it is rather awkward. So sitting around the table with a spiritual father who is interested in who you are and where your going was a treat. We talked about ourselves, our dreams, our struggles over delicious Chinese food. It was a small glimpse of the dinners I wish to have in the future in New Orleans each week.

Dinner and conversation use to be a primary event as a family in American and somewhere along the way we became busy, microwaves brought us television dinners, and instead of coming home to family time around the table it was family time around the T.V. cold, silent, filled with programming. As we build community here at the Refuge it is like a revival of gentle family intimacy with each other. Ancient path or communal living around a shared table.

You get snap shots through your life in dinner at restaurants with a close group of friends, or around your grandparents table and sometimes on holidays. Still yesterday reminded me there is more to spiritual walk then what I am doing in the House. More then just relationship with those who move in and out of the House. It reminded me that community and family are the foundation of the Kingdom and that the Kingdom can break loose with a Spiritual Father asking questions to young men and women around a table with tea and chow mien.

A Glimpse Into The House.

Heaven Hears

"I Know You Are Listening
I Know That You Care
I Know You Are Listening
And Heaven Moves At
My Prayer......"

These words are what is written at the edge of a large mural painted in Refuge House of Prayer. Some misconceptions about the house of prayer that the soul duty of its house staff is to pray for you. While this is something we times do it is not our full purpose. At the Refuge the staffs goal is to create and maintain a place for God's presence to dwell so that you may meet Him.

So the Refuge would more accurately be called a House of Presence. The Refuge HOP functions as a place to let people experience and draw to God on a personal level.

As the House grows our goal it to raise up people into their destinies, equipped and then send them out empowered in a relationship with God. Apostolic Priest sent out like living Arks changing the place they enter by calling the down heaven to earth. Shaking the foundation of preconceptions set today by our society. Reformationist that cry out change with not only their voices but their lifestyles.

Thats why I am here for now. It is the basis for my future dream of opening a House in New Orleans. More later friends....

The Why...

The Why...

Recently I have life has been interesting. I have been in a grand transition from living in the security of graduate school and being a adjunct at Oral Roberts University to moving back to California and becoming an intercessory missionary. This mean my finances are like those of a Levite in which I must depend on those around me to sustain me as my job is to serve the Lord in prayer and teaching.

It is no secret that my this is leading to New Orleans where I want to start a House of Presence to train up the Broken to radically change the city and the world. This is a time at the Refuge House of Prayer is a training for that.

Recently during a time time of prayer and worship God gave me a vision about a Broken Army that I will share are the end of this post.

The why of starting this blog is simple. I want to update those who support me and let you know about my passions such as stories, teachings, thoughts, steampunk, and miracles.

To this end I have created this Blog. You know the reasons, so now know the vision:

"There was an army. It stood upon the crest of a hill and looked across the banner. As far as the eye could see the army spread across. The black tunics emblazed with a golden broken cog. This army spanned generations. All carried scars of some sort.

They where dressed as they like. Some in Victorian, others latex, vinyl and spandex, others in leather and still others in rich muted crimson, blues and purples. Their hairstyles matched the menagerie mo-hawks, dread-locks, braids, bald, short, classic comb over, pompadour and colors from natural to reds, greens, purples, unnatural blacks and blazing pinks.

They stared with identity and purpose at me. They wore badges of honor as musician, artist, dancer, writer, brother, mother, daughter, son, sister, father. They chanted, "All or nothing once broken now made whole. Blessed be the Son of the Dawn. His Name is Jesus."

To my left stood wisdom in her beauty and glory and to my write stood my spiritual father. This was my inheritance. This army of broken people now made whole. These where those who did not fit into the great machine of the world or the religious mechanisms. These where the ones told to leave, they had no place, that they where not wanted, or not Christians enough. These where the ones declared outcast bastards and left to the streets.

And I loved every one of them as son and daughter. This was my army and my family. The broken, hurt and bound. They where free now, redeemed, empowered. They knew their destiny, authority, identity and power. They see Jesus before us and behind us. I was there floor.

So you see them? They rattle their swords and the enemy flees, they bring healing to the broken and offer them family, they set the captives free with a gentle smile and acceptance. This is broken army. This army of Broken Cogs, they are amazing.

God is so Good..."