What is a church? A lot of people have false ideas concerning the church. And one of the most common false concepts is that the church is an organization or a place where meetings are held. Did you go to church on Sunday? Yeah, I went down to that hall that they hire in the denomination that I belong to.

Well, in Bible days, originally, the church was the location where the people lived and met. And you'll see terms like the church in Ephesus, church in Philippi, the church of Corinth. The church was circumscribed by its location.

Okay. And there were different churches, each of those different places. How did these churches come about? Well, you see Paul and Barnabas going, starting in the existing church, which was the Jewish synagogue.

That was the existing church. That's where everybody was going on the Sabbath. And they stood up there and began to preach.

And they preached stuff that was valid because it was from the scriptures. They didn't preach heresy, but they added a little bit more that the Jews were not preaching in the synagogues. They added the gospel of salvation.

And as a result of that, people responded to that word and came to the Lord and were born again. And immediately they came to Paul and Barnabas and became part of them, to be associated with them. And as this continued, little groups of people began to form and they would not meet on the Sabbath day in the synagogue.

They would meet somewhere else. And I think initially the easiest thing was to do it the next day, which was the Sunday. And a church was born.

It didn't exist before. Okay. Nevertheless, at that time, we still thought of the church in a city, the church in a suburb, or today the church on Main Street, but we actually don't normally even use those terms anymore, do we? We'll say something like, if you can remember the name of the church or denomination, which is a miracle, you may say, I belong to such and such a church.

Do you know, we have such a simple, simple title, GBM Fellowship. Do you know that people cannot pronounce GBM the right way around? It's always G-M-B or G-L-M-G. People don't think of a church by its name.

They really don't. They just start thinking of it because they have to identify it. You know what you usually, how you describe your church, you know, pastor so-and-so, that guy that preaches so well, I go to his church.

I belong to pastor so-and-so's church. Think about it. Because that leader becomes the determining factor of the group of people who gather together.

So things have changed over time. The structure of the church and the way it's run has changed over time. And today, as we enter into our modern society, we now have an added situation called the internet.

We have easily access to videos and audios and so much more that the early church didn't have. And that again is changing the face of the local church. And it doesn't look the same anymore.

Now we have lost the true meaning of church. According to the Word of God and according to Jesus, a church is formed where two or more believers gather together. We don't think of that as a church, do we? That's not big enough.

Not enough people. We don't have a pastor. You know what happens when two or three people gather together? Jesus comes to live there.

Matthew 18, verse 20, you all know this. For where two or three have been gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them. So what is a church? A church is where several believers, more than one, come together and the Lord manifests His presence in that group.

That's a church. Now we sometimes think of the church as a club. You know, you join as a member.

You pay your subscriptions. It's called tithing. And you get benefits.

If you're a faithful tither, brother, we will give you opportunities that we don't give to non-tithers. We will give you a position in the church. We will lift your name up, make you an elder if you give enough benefits.

I'm afraid a lot of churches just deteriorated into just another club. People come together and sometimes they just have fun together and do things. And they put on a program to entertain.

And it's nothing more. Okay. Well, what is the church? The Bible says the church is the body of Christ.

Okay. Ephesians 1, verse 2. And has put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the films of Him that fills all in all. It takes more than one member to make a body.

You can't stand up here and say, I am the body of Christ. Yeah, you got a body and the Holy Spirit lives in you. But you're just the little pinky or the toe.

Maybe you're really important and you're a nose, but you're a single member. Now, even the most primitive form of life, and I stand to correction, but I learned that the simplest creature you get was the amoeba, a single celled creature. And it was alive.

So it was not just a plant. The amoeba has a nucleus and an exterior and stuff inside. It's got several different things in it.

And that's the lowest form of a body. And even that has some things in it, not many. A body has to have multiple members to function efficiently.

If I did not have legs, I could not walk as I preach. I did not have vocal cords. I couldn't even talk.

Every single part of my body has a function and together they make up a complete body. Now, if I decided to cut off one of the parts and cut off my little finger and leave it lying there, how much is that finger going to accomplish lying there by itself? Actually, it's not going to last long. It's going to shrivel away and die because it's not connected to the life that comes from the rest of the body.

So if we are the body of Christ, that means there has to be more than one of us together to form the church. You cannot sit at home and pray by yourself and say, I'm the church. Well, I had church last night in my bedroom, all by myself, me and the Lord.

We had a great time. That's wonderful. It's good to fellowship with the Lord, but that wasn't church.

But you see, I put on my computer and I watched a message. It's a preacher was preaching. And so I had church all by myself.

Was the preacher in your room? He didn't have church. There's two kinds of church. The Bible speaks firstly about the local church.

As I said originally, that was the church in a locality. That's why it was called the local church. And usually the place where everybody lived, they didn't have to travel too far to gather together in a public place to meet.

And usually as a group came together, somebody needs to be put in charge because a body without a head is not much use. It's got to be a head. It's got to be a function, a power, something that brings it all together and controls it and make sure that it works efficiently.

You chop your head off, your body's gone. It's dead. Absolutely essential.

So the local church is a group of believers gathering together. Two or three still makes a church, but within the group, there will be at least one or more that will rise up in a more leadership capacity. Okay.

And then we have the universal church. And the universal church is very different to the local church because the universal church embraces all believers throughout the world. That's the universal church.

The universal church embraces all the local churches together as one. Okay. I want you to understand those terms because I often refer to the universal church and to the local church and to how we as believers relate to those two different kinds of church.

And I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on that today because I've got a specific direction I want to take you. Okay. Now, God has a pattern for the church, just as he made a pattern for these bodies of ours, didn't he? Well, you know, a bunch of cells decided to get together one day and they just started to just... And by accident and by fate and by influences around it, it suddenly became another creature.

And it evolved from small little life forms into great big life forms. And now the highest life form is the human. Isn't nature marvelous? So much easier to call it nature than God, isn't it? It doesn't happen by accident.

There's a plan. There's a pattern. When you make something, you don't just throw the materials together and say, let's see if we can make a sort of a kind of a something.

No, no, no. What do you want to make exactly? How does it look? How big is it going to be? What color is it? What's it going to do? There's got to be a pattern. Otherwise it's all going to fall apart.

Well, there's a simple pattern that God's created for the church. Firstly, there needs to be leadership. One of the churches that we read about in the Acts of the Apostles, one of the main churches was the church at Antioch.

And the church at Antioch actually was formed without a leader. What happened is the great servant of God, Saul of Tarsus, he didn't know he was the servant of God, but he was even back there already. He came persecuting the churches and caused the Christians to scatter everywhere.

They wanted to huddle there in Jerusalem where it was nice. He caused them to scatter. And the scripture says they scattered everywhere.

And whenever they went, they just shared the gospel. And eventually they got up there to Antioch and a whole lot of people got saved. And so what are we going to do with a whole bunch of Christians? Let's get together and worship the Lord and and have church.

But who's going to be the leader? Well, it was just led by the spirit. We don't need a leader. The church in Jerusalem heard about it.

And you know, it's the first thing they did. They sent Barnabas to Antioch and they said, go and pastor these people. Go and take charge and lead them and put them in order.

Well, Barney was doing a pretty good job, but he wasn't much of a teacher. He was kind of more prophetic. And so after a while, he realized these people need some teaching.

And he went to go find Saul, who'd now become Paul. Sitting there in Tarsus again, all in obscurity, he'd come to the Lord, but was now hidden away in preparation. And he brought Saul, Paul, to join him at Antioch.

They began to teach the people and bam, the church began to grow. And eventually from Antioch, they started to send others out. What an amazing church.

Wow. Now there's two kinds of leadership in the church. One is appointed by God.

The other is appointed by man. You say, well, I wouldn't follow somebody who'd been appointed by man. I only want to follow people that have been appointed by God.

No, no, no. It's still God's pattern. It's still God's order.

You see, God appoints the higher level of leaders. The Bible calls the fivefold ministry of pastor, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. But the local church, they choose somebody from their midst who has good leadership capability to rise up and to lead them.

Those people are called elders. Okay. They're called elders because age normally means wisdom.

So you look for somebody who's a bit older, he knows a bit more, that we can trust that person to follow, to lead me because he's probably a bit more clued up, you know? So I think it kind of started by them always picking old people. I think the term elders came back from the Old Testament already. Okay.

And then we needed somebody to do the admin. And so they chose deacons. The people chose the deacons, not God.

Well, brother, the Lord has showed me that he's called you to be an elder, and therefore we are going to ordain you to the ministry of an elder. Nonsense. There's no such calling as elder.

It's not a calling. It's a position that's appointed based on your spiritual maturity and your leadership capability. And many of the elders, they don't even know how to minister.

Paul has to relate it right, and he says, the elders that also preach and teach, they deserve greater pay. In other words, there's some elders who don't. But the church has changed, hasn't it? Who's the elders in your church? There's probably only one.

They call him pastor. He's the chief elder, and everybody else, they're assistant pastors. Most of the time, they're just deacons, little servants who do the dog work that the senior elder doesn't want to do.

That's what the church has gravitated to. But nevertheless, if somebody has been appointed to be an elder, they are in leadership in that local church. And their leadership is confined to that local church.

They have no authority in the universal church. If you take an elder out of this church and move him to another one, he's not going to be recognized when he gets there as an elder. He's just going to come in as an ordinary church member.

See? However, if you've been placed into a ministry office and you come to a church, you can stand up and say, I'm going to function in the fivefold office of the prophet, and I will minister. And you can walk into another church, and you can do the same thing with the same authority and power. Because your leadership was not ordained by man or by a group.

It was ordained by God himself. See? So the fivefold ministry, they operate in the universal church. They can travel the world and preach anywhere.

This is just foundational stuff that I'm teaching you now so I can get to my full point. So the first necessity, according to the pattern of the church, is there must be leadership. Whether it be God appointed or man appointed, there needs to be leadership.

And then there needs to be a necessity for the full functioning of every member in the body. You know, if I tied my hand behind my back and never used it, especially if I tied my left hand, I know all you people are probably right-handed, but I'm gifted. I'm left-handed.

See? If I tied my left hand behind my body, I can't write. In fact, there's just quite a few things I can't do because I use my left hand for all of those. But you know, I'm the head and I don't need the hand because I give the commands and I run the show around here.

So, Mr. Hand, we don't need you. If I need you every now and then to go and do the garden work, I will invite you. I'm afraid the church has gravitated to a place where it's become a head and not a body anymore.

And the head attends the meetings so that, so I said the body attends the meeting, so the head has somebody to preach to, so the head has somebody to lead. But what use is a body if every member firstly doesn't know what member they are? You know, supposing you were a thumb, but you thought you were a toe. Boy, you got problems trying to walk on your hands.

You need to know which member you are in this body. OK, now this is going to change, isn't it? Because if I'm in the universal church, I'm going to be focused up to a specific calling that God's given. But if I'm in the local church, I have a role to play in that church.

Well, brother, you got such a good singing voice, we'll make you the worship leader. Is that your calling? Is it? Not necessarily. You just happen to have a good voice, so they made you the worship leader because you sing nice.

But at least you're doing something. At least you're functioning. At least when you come to church, you're saying, I'm coming here for a purpose.

I have something to fulfill. And you know what? If I was not here today, the rest of the body are going to suffer. You know, they're going to have the song service and they're going to call somebody from the audience to come and lead the worship who can't even sing in key.

Can you imagine the cacophony? Oh, Lord. So you want to be there because it's important, because you have a role to play and you won't miss a meeting. OK.

This is where I believe that the church of today has moved away from God's pattern. The final thing is there's a necessity for unity. There must be submission, firstly, to leadership, because if we all look upwards to the leadership, we all stand in unity and agreement.

If instructions are passed down and everybody, see, the brain does that, the brain sends a message, says, hand do this, toes do that. Each part of the body, heart beats. There's unity.

There's a flowing together. OK, so. God's pattern is a leader, whether it be appointed by God, appointed by man.

Every member should know what their function is and should be carrying out that function for the body to function. And there needs to be a unity, one purpose flowing together. OK, now the sad news is that the perfect church does not exist.

If you found it, please let me know, because I haven't found it yet. Unfortunately, sometimes all of those principles are violated at one time or another. Most of them fail to follow the correct pattern and many of them are stuck in tradition.

This is the way my folks used to do it, and they do it the way my grandparents used to do it. Well, the times, they are a-changing. No, no, we do it the right way, the formal way.

This is God's way. No, it's not. We've been out of the traditions of man.

And every new church group or denomination that rises up, breaks away from the others when they do things differently, they form their own pattern. Well, what's the pattern of your denomination? Well, our emphasis is this. It's always like one thing they overemphasize everything else, and that makes them unique and makes them stand out.

And they boast more in that than they do in God's pattern. Now, here's the amazing thing. No matter how far they've gone away from the pattern, the Lord is still there.

It's still His body. He still lives there. He could live in a better house, but you know what? He's going to start with what's there.

Because of His love and His care, He doesn't judge us for having the wrong pattern. He could do so much more if we had the right pattern. But He's going to take what's there, and He's going to use it.

Have you ever visited a church that does things totally different to what you're used to? In fact, you look at it and you think, how the heck can these people run their meetings like this? It just doesn't follow. But you get in there in the worship or the preaching, and you feel the presence of God. Hey, the Lord's here today.

Lord, didn't you know that their patterns are wrong? Lord, didn't you notice all the other things they brought in that are not according to you? Or didn't you notice? Or it seems you didn't. You still love them the same. And if they preach the gospel, people still got saved.

People still got healed. Things happened. But you and I, we're not quite as tolerant, are we? We get in there, and it doesn't work the way we want it to go.

We don't get recognized, and we don't get given opportunities, and we don't like the leader or the leaders. And we say, I don't belong here. I'm going to find a better church.

And so, you leave that church, and you go to the next closest church down the road, and you go in there. They're even worse. I mean, there's got to be a church somewhere that does things correctly.

There's got to be a church somewhere. Well, you know, if you're a glory seeker, you don't even notice that. You just go and say, is the glory, is the power happening? Are people falling under the power when they pray for them? That's all the guns.

Go and get some blessing. But if you're a true leader, if God's destined you to rise up in leadership, and you got a calling, you can look at this and say, but it's all wrong. I can't be part of this.

It's all wrong. And so, you leave, and you sit at home. You say, I don't need to go to church.

Man, there's such good stuff on the internet. I can just look up any preacher that's preaching. Some people are really good stuff for free.

I can buy videos and audios. I can read books. I don't need to be in that church.

They don't appreciate me. They don't even notice me. Why should I be there? You been there? I have, many times.

And so, we come to the place eventually where we think, you know what? I see no benefit in going to church. I see no benefit in being involved in the church system, because I'm a spare part. I didn't see why I should be there.

So, I'm going to leave. And you know, you have that choice, and you have the freedom to leave. You know, because you live in Kempton Park, doesn't mean you need to attend the church in Kempton Park.

We're no longer subscribed by the legality anymore. You have a free choice to go wherever you choose. But you should be part of the church of God, because you are a member of his body.

And I want to, and this is the most important part of my message today, I want to present to you why it's important that you belong or involved in a local church. Firstly, we know there's power in numbers. When you put several people together, they can accomplish a whole lot more than one person by themselves.

It's called team ministry. It's called teamwork. It's a fact of life in this world.

You can accomplish so much more if you unite and combine your resources with somebody else's. Well, you know, we as believers have been endured with something very powerful that God has placed in our spirits. Each one has got a piece of God in them.

You have within you the power to make things happen in this world and to create the kind of life that you desire. Some people have learned to tap into that power, highly magnified and accomplish much. But let me tell you who are the ones that seem to have accomplished the most.

And the ones who realize they couldn't do it by themselves and look for somebody else to help them, to join them in their task. Something that we do not realize is that we have in our spirits a function which we call communion, which allows you to come to communicate in the spirit with another person by their spirit. And when two believers come together and communicate with one another in their spirit, they pull their resources and pour into one another.

And the power is highly magnified. The anointing is always greater in a group. There's a nice little scripture way back in Isaiah, which needs to be interpreted for you to understand it.

I'll read it to you. Isaiah chapter 65 in verse 8. Thus says the Lord Yahweh, the new wine is found in the grape cluster and the intention is not to destroy it since there's a blessing in it. Well, what's the new wine? The new wine speaks about the blessing and the anointing of God.

Hmm? Well, they're full of the spirit on the day of Pentecost. They said they're full of new wine. Sometimes it has the same effect.

You get high. Well, where's the new wine found? It's not found in a single grape. It's found in a cluster.

You've got to take that whole bunch of grapes and squeeze them together if you want to make good wine. I, you know, I'm a pretty large grape. I can make quite a lot of wine.

You know, the closest you can get, if somebody said, what happens when you stand on a grape, it lets out a little wine. You get the joke? Wine, groan, moan. That's the closest you're going to get to getting wine out of one grape.

You need the cluster. I don't think you can do this by yourself. You need social interaction with other human beings.

Even Adam couldn't survive by himself. God had to give him a partner. You need personal help when you're under attack.

Now, I don't care what spiritual level of spiritual maturity you have reached. I guarantee at least one day every week, you hit it down. You may go to bed feeling great and you wake up in the morning.

It's just all, it leaked out during the night. You get up and you feel under a cloud and you wonder whether you heard right and you wonder whether you did the right thing and you just don't feel like even serving the Lord. Do apostles have that as well? I'm afraid so.

Every one of us. We have an enemy who's out to destroy us. Now, when you're down, how are you going to pull yourself out? You sitting there all by yourself in your prayer time? Well, I'm going to break through the clouds.

I'm going to storm the gates of heaven. Rubbish, you're going to sit in water, you're going to feel like praying. And if you pray, you think, the Lord's not going to be listening to me anyway, why should I bother? You need some outside help, I'm afraid.

Every one of us, without exception, it's a time when we need help from the outside. We need somebody else who's got their spirit charged up, come and pour some of their charge in our spirit and recharge it. The Lord likened that to feet washing.

When Peter, when he washed the disciples' feet and Peter said, well, Lord, don't just wash my feet, wash my whole body. And the Lord said, your body's already washed. Did your feet get dirty? And when we go out in this world, our feet get dirty.

We get affected by the world, we pick up the dirt of the world. And sometimes we need somebody to give us a foot washing. That's all we need.

That is an absolute necessity of us being in contact with other believers in a group. You need a place to belong. We all do.

We need to feel that we're important. We need to feel that we're important. You know, every one of us has two basic needs in life, a need for acceptance and a need for recognition.

I've sometimes made you done those the wrong way and taught people that then you stop looking to people to meet those needs, but they need to look to the Lord alone to meet those needs. You know, the Lord is wonderful. And in the spirit, I've got to know him like a friend.

He can't replace a living, physical human being in this world who just accepts me and wants to be around me, who recognizes the things that I do and makes me feel good about myself. Ooh, that sounds so fleshly and carnal. No, it's human.

Jesus even faced some of those things. Where are you going to get that, folks? You're not going to get in the world, I'll tell you that, because there's dog-eat-dog and competition and strife and vainglory. I could push you down, put myself up in your place.

You're not going to get that in the church, in the world. Only one place you're going to get that, and that's in a group of people who are committed to one another. You need friends and associates in this world.

Where are you going to find them? In the world? What have they got to give you? What have they got in their spirits that they can pour into you? Worldliness, demonic powers, curses, bad influences. Well, you know, I can be fine. I can survive on my own, and I can read the word, and I can read books, and I can watch videos and listen to audios, and I can go to the Lord.

Yeah, I can. I can. I've come to the place where I don't need anybody to give me prophetic word anymore, because I know how to tap into that.

But you know, when I get up in the morning, and it's one of those days, I start looking for the nearest person who doesn't feel like I do. And often, he or she is lying in the bed next to you, best place. Your partner is the ultimate.

One person in the world who really cares about you, the rest of the world don't. They sometimes show, but they really don't. There's only one person who really cares about you.

You're special to them. So yes, a partner is very great, and between the two of you, you kind of do have a church. But you know, you know, she knows me.

She accepts me. She recognizes me. But when I go out there, it's not the same as it.

You know, I'd like a few other people to accept me. I'd like a few other people out there to recognize me and say, hey, you're doing a great job. I really enjoyed your ministry.

Wow. That was a powerful prayer. We need people who will do that.

We need to create what I call a circle of influence. What's a circle of influence? Imagine you standing here and you've got people standing in a circle all around you. These are people that are fairly close to you, that you have a relationship with, that you can intercommunicate with.

You can communicate with them and they can communicate back to you. You can share ideas together. And when you have something to share, you can share with all of them and be an influence on them.

And they, in turn, can all come and be a good influence on you. Well, who's your circle of influence? How many can you count? Can you see the circle all around you of people that are close to you that you can count on, that you have a good relationship? Well, you know, I've got my family. You know, brothers and sisters will shoot each other down.

Yeah, I know there's some. Yeah, it's great. Thank the Lord for family.

Especially if they serve in the Lord. I've got my little family unit, me and my wife and our kids. So who exactly are you influencing? Because you see, the purpose for the circle of influence is that as you influence them, they go out and each of them builds their own circle of influence.

Now, supposing you've got a circle of 10 people that you're working with. One of those people in your circle goes out and creates their own circle of 10. You now have access to 10 extra people through them.

Times 10 means you now get access to 100 people because you built a relationship with them. They build a relationship with us and gets transmitted, gets passed outwards and inwards. Can you see the protection that you have now? Can you see the opportunities that you're going to have to take what God's given you and pour it out? The opportunities to learn and receive from others who can pour back into you.

You know, the world called us a mastermind and they boast in it. All these marketing guys out there, I had my mastermind group once a month based on a famous book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And he said that basically what I'm teaching you he discovered.

We've got within us a power that we can use, but to multiply it, we need to get other people to add to it, to contribute to it. And then as the group, we accomplish so much more. These are unbelievers and they're doing it.

We get in the church, we want to kill each other. We want to compete with one another. We want to outshine one another.

That wasn't the purpose for the church, folks. Now you may have work associates that are a center of influence and that's good for you to relate to the world. And God does give ministries that relate into the status quo world system.

So that's great. Then you have your spiritual family. That's a whole new group.

Your unity is in the spirit and in the Lord. It's totally different. Where are you going to find that spiritual family? It's called the church.

It's the church. Now today we have modern means of communication. Books have been around since way back.

We're still reading what Paul wrote. Video and audio are fairly new. We can have access and learn and receive via all these modern conveniences.

We can now reach the nations with the word. I can write books that will remain long after I'm dead and gone. I can continue to minister through that book, through the videos that I made, through the audios that were recorded.

And we can do amazing things. When we first went to Mexico, we couldn't speak to the local population. They only spoke Spanish.

So we got on the internet and we began to produce videos and audios and write books. And we began to reach the nations. And that was awesome.

But you know, although the influence of those things can continue, the only anointing that's locked up in them is the internal anointing. You can read Smith Wigglesworth praying for the sick. You won't get healed from it.

You may get inspired and excited to want to move in healing, but the external anointing is not communicated by these means, because they are a logos means. The word is logos, a fixed word. Rhema is live spoken word.

And that's where the power comes. That's where faith arises. We had a great experience online.

We got to meet people online. At first it was only text, then we got audio and video. Eventually we kind of got to meet people and interact with them, but never physically.

And you know, I could sense their spirit, even in their words. I could sense their spirit. I could sense their hearts.

And I assessed people based on that. And I developed some good relationships with folks. And then we began to invite them to come down to a conference where we could meet them for the first time.

We invited folks to come and stay with us for a few days so we could interact with them personally and meet them for the first time. And there were some people that showed a great potential for ministry that I really thought were doing great. When I came to their presence, I discerned demons.

Demons. Oh, I did not feel that before. Because it's different when you come physically into the presence of somebody.

Because your spirit touches their spirit. You can't do that via the media. You can't do it via the internet.

You can reach the nations without traveling. You can preach the gospel even. You can receive ministry right there in your home without having to go to all that effort of getting dressed and getting in the car and traveling all the way to church.

But there are some things that will never be fully communicated that you can only get when you're physically present or close to somebody. If you've ever been in a meeting where the preacher was really anointed and you were sitting right near the front, you'll probably feel the power. The next time you're sitting at the back, and it's just not the same.

The preaching was great. It was anointed. I can feel the presence of God.

But you don't get that bam. It's coming straight out of them. It's radiating from them.

Catherine Kuhlman was so infused with the presence of the Lord that she'd walk through an airport and people fall under the power. They didn't do it watching her videos. There is a power in your spirit.

And when the anointing of God is on you, that power radiates. And when you come into the proximity of people, it touches them. You cannot accomplish that without meeting together with other believers.

You can't pick up from one another without physically meeting and coming in close proximity to one another. Now, we in Mexico learned to do everything that can be done online. We perfected it, published our books, recorded the videos, put them online.

We even started running training schools. But when God brought us back here to our homeland, we could finally set up live schools where students could come. And, you know, I would play them the video.

Well, they said, why re-preach it? I'd play them the video and then we'd interact. It was a whole different result in training those people. And there was just sending them online to my videos.

Yeah, they were learning principles, but I wasn't imparting anything to them. Nothing was coming out of my spirit into them. The internal anointing, yes, but the internal anointing doesn't have the power of the external.

The external has to be manifested from the human body. It's the only way it can work. When the pandemic came a few years back, it didn't faze us much except that we had to close down the live schools.

We'd been used to running online for years, so we just continued. But, you know, I anticipated that everybody was whinging and moaning because they couldn't attend meetings. And then when the pandemic was over, there'd be an explosion of everybody rushing back to be able to finally attend church.

Well, the sports people did that. Go and cheer for their favorite team. You know, every pastor of local churches in this country will agree with me when I say that the churches died because everybody went online.

You know, I don't have to come to church, do you understand? I can sit there in my pajamas, in my bed, and watch it and still get blessed. So why should I come to church? I thought Satan was clever in bringing the pandemic to try and destroy the church of God, but he did more damage after it was over. The church is dying.

The church is dying and it's become like it was in Paul's day. Whoever wrote the book of Hebrews, don't neglect the meeting together. It's become a custom and a habit amongst so many of you.

So we don't need it. Big mistake, big mistake. We need one another and we need to be in one another's physical presence if we want to benefit ourselves and them.

The only place that's going to happen is the gathering of the saints, the church of God. So in conclusion, what member of the body do you represent? What is your purpose or function or ministry? I want you to do this, and you probably did it already when I mentioned it, but I want you to be honest. Sit down and write down a list of people you know that you could consider your circle of influence.

You won't need a big piece of paper unless you're already in the public eye. There's not many people that we can open our hearts to and trust, that we can interact with at an equal level, that we can pour into and receive from. You could consider friends or close associates.

You could call part of that the circle of influence. You need somebody who cares enough to help. How many of these circle of influence people that are committed believers who are ready to share and pour out what they have? And then who's helping you to meet your basic desires? I don't need revelation to know what your basic desires are.

You want to be accepted. You want to get together with people and feel that you don't have to try and be what you're not and try to pretend and put on a show. You can just be you.

You know how wonderful when you marry somebody and they really care? You know, the first time you meet them, of course, you've got to put on a bit of an impression. If you're a woman, the guy's not going to notice you unless you're really looking beautiful. See? And then you get to know one another's weaknesses.

And then it's too late because you already fell in love. Okay, they're going to accept you. And you're important to them so they'll recognize you.

They may praise you when you do something. Well, hey, you did a great job there. That was really good.

Can encourage you. So you should do more of that, you know? You know what? You're really such a good cook. I love your food.

You have such skills. You know, you can do things I can't do. I really admire that in you.

We need it. Every one of us. I wouldn't be standing up here today preaching if I didn't need it.

Well, you know, I'm so spiritual that I'm doing this only for the Lord as a sacrifice. Yeah, sometimes it is. But what put me up here? I was tired of being a little nobody in obscurity, the little black sheep, nobody in the family.

And I said, what can I do with my life that'll make people notice me? I thought I was going to do with education and work. And I didn't have money to go to university. So that dropped through.

And then God called me and I thought, hey, here's a chance. If I could become the pastor of a church, people would notice me. Wow.

What a spiritual motivation. Come on, who are you kidding? Don't tell me all your motivation is just to glorify the Lord. Yeah, we're going to glorify him.

And with his help, we'll get better at it. But we're still human. We're still fleshly.

And we still have our own needs to meet. And what better place to meet it than in the body of Christ? What better place with other Christians who will understand what you're going through, who will care, who will give you a chance to stand up here and preach a load of nonsense because you don't know what you're doing and still encourage you and say, that wasn't too bad, you'll get better. Go on.

If you can't find a church, let me give you this. And you should be looking for your family now. You should be looking for your family, your family in the Lord.

If you haven't found it, you should be hunting. If you're not getting it in the church you are, maybe you should try another church because they're all different. None of them are perfect, but you may find something that's more suitable.

Now, if you've tried them all and none of them are what you expected and hoped for, you're going to be tempted to say, I might as well stay home and just fellowship with my family. At least they accept me. My wife thinks I'm a great preacher, even if nobody else does.

I'd like to suggest there's one of two things you can do. And one of them is not leave the church. You are the church.

You are part of it. You're floating around as a disembodied member, unless you're involved with a group. So you have two choices.

Number one, go and find the church that's least closest to be a model for you and try and be an influence in that church. Instead of condemning the pattern, condemning the preacher, whatever, condemning the structure, why don't you come and be an influence, a model to show them what it should look like? Now, that's a challenge. You have so much in you to give out.

It's going to rub off eventually. Other people can start picking it up. They're going to say, I like the way you do things.

I think we should do more of that. Oh, it's a big job though. And that guy behind the door recognized me.

Oh, I spent years trying to get that. I tried changing churches and every time I tried to rise up, they said, who do you think you are trying to rise up? Yeah, I'm the preacher. Well, I knew I could preach better than him.

I think maybe I communicated that's why I was, my need for recognition was too great. See, but you know, start where you are or find a place where you can be a model of influence and you change the church. If you can't and you've got leadership capability, find two or three others and make a church.

It's that easy really. Well, in Bible days, they'd started in the homes, but you know, they're bigger homes than we have now. I mean, the upper room, they had 120 people there.

But you can start in your home. The idea is not to just stay there, but to grow. If you're a real leader, you're going to have to do it outside of the home.

I'm backtracking on something that I've taught an entire series on. Don't read my God's pattern for the end times church. It doesn't work.

I'm pulling that book because I've based it on the home church. Don Quixote built the biggest church in the world using the home church. I've tried it many times.

It doesn't work. Nobody wants to use their home. Nobody wants to open their home to other people.

And besides, what fun is there? Come and sitting in somebody's lounge and sitting, sharing the word. You know, like the big band out there, playing the drums. I want the great big preacher who's got a loud voice and come to the anointing.

Even if it's a show. People want that. They want that.

If you want to build a church, give them what they want. Well, that's not God's pattern. Start with the pattern that's there and change it.

Do you know when Paul and Barnabas began to build the church? They didn't put up an ad and say, inviting everybody to a new religious group. The people said, we are Jews. Who do you think you are? No, they went to the Jews, stood up in the synagogue and said, my brother, my sister, my family.

I'm here to minister to you. They were allowed to do that in the synagogue. They started with the system.

Then they began to build the new. See, I had this picture. I'm sorry I'm going long today, but I have so much exciting stuff just burning in me.

I had this picture that God wants to build a new church. And I do believe he does. And in the end, it would be nice to have the right pattern.

But I found he's still the old pattern. So, you know, let's not be too drastic. I want it to be drastic.

So here's the old church standing. So we're going to buy the plot of land next door. And we start building a new church.

We're going to lay the foundation. And we're going to, bit by bit, slowly steal the bricks from this church and move it over to that one. Until all they got left is the foundation and we got the church.

Built the right way, you see, because the problem is the foundation. They built on the wrong foundation. Let's start a new foundation and rebuild that church.

I've been trying to do it for 20 years and it hasn't worked yet. Concept is right. God wants to build a new church, a live, vital church where every member knows their place and it's functioning.

But how are we going to get there? Not by cutting off the old. Not by saying, I refuse to be associated with that system anymore. For years, I've been training people who left the system, like I did.

Most of them were prophets. And virtually everyone got the left boot of fellowship. Of course, they tried to tell the pastor something prophetically and he didn't like it.

They got too excited about the revelations they were getting and thought they could just step in there and start running the church. So we accepted students to one of the best first qualifications that we looked at as, were you kicked out of your church? We want you. You're the kind of people we're looking for.

See, you're the swans, not the ugly ducklings. You're special. You're different.

And then we began to raise people out to become apostles and we taught them the pattern for the new church with the idea that they will go out now and build the new church. Now we went through a lot of people over 20 years. Would you like to know the number of people that we trained that went out and even began to build a new church? Not one.

They didn't know how to build a new church. All they knew was the old. And if they try to start something new, they'll start running the same way as the old.

Because that's all they learned. You can teach them in principle how it should work, but how do you show them? How do you show them what it looks like? See, and I realized I had this negative attitude against the church for years. And we were trying to build a system outside of the church.

Nobody was going to church anymore. Nobody was involved. Everybody was little loners floating around like disembodied members saying, I'm an apostle, I'm a prophet.

So what are you doing with it? What Christians are you ministering since you don't want to touch that system where all the Christians are? And several times I tried to start a church with that concept in foundation and every time it died. Well, you know what? I've got a lot to offer. I can preach better than most of these guys out there.

I flow in the anointing of God. I flow in all the gifts of revelation. Why don't people want to come? Because of the picture I have in my mind, the negative picture that I have of the church and of church meetings has poisoned even my own desire to really build a vibrant living church.

I've tried to over-identify with people because of the bad experiences I've had. I thought everybody out there like me was crying for an opportunity to minister, but they aren't. 90% of the people sitting in the pews, let's offer your brother a chance to minister.

Nothing's happening. I'm quite happy with your things. You start to preach.

Some of our students have tried to apply the principles I taught them and their ministries died. Yeah, I'm being transparent and honest with you now because God's been challenging me on this. And the Lord said, you should be training these people and let them take what they have and go and change the church.

And perhaps once now I finally have a right attitude. I can finally build a church that looks like this, but it's going to be different. One of the brothers that joined us some years back, became an active part of our ministry from Switzerland.

We said to him, what attracted you to us? He said, you look normal. You didn't look weird like some of these other people. Well, I'm anything but normal, but the point is, you know, let's not change at all and try and be clever.

Let's start with the people are. See, since I'm starting again, if you arrive late one of these days, you won't get a seat because this place is going to be full and we'll probably have to get a bigger hall. Because for the first time, I see how important it is that we have the gathering of the saints, that we have ministry, that people have a home that they can belong.

So I want you to examine your own situation. Some of you are called to be leaders in ministry and perhaps God's even calling you to go and build a ministry of your own. Hopefully you will have learned some of the principles we've taught on how the pattern should be and you will try to implement them, but start where you are and build from there.

See, you must, you must be part of the church. You cannot survive alone. You must be an active part of the church of God.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for your word. I thank you for your anointing that enabled me to share my heart and to share the things you taught me. And I ask that those who have heard it both today and will continue to hear it as we publish this video, Lord, that you will reach out and touch hearts and inspire them.

Bring your church, Lord, to order. Bring your people to a place of unity and ministering to one another and being the body that you intend them to be, so that you have a healthy body to live in, Lord, and you can function in this world in an even greater measure than you did. This is why you said, the works that I do shall you do, but greater works than these.

Because you were limited to one little body when you walked the earth, but now you're not limited anymore, Lord. Your body is stretched throughout the whole world. Your body is massive and your body is glorious, and you could do so much more now than you did when you walked this earth.

May each of us be challenged, Lord, to take that place, to find the place, and to find those that should be working with us, that we should be involved with, to build your kingdom afresh and to build this new church that you are going to come and receive as your bride, Lord. Thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen.

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