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 to the right of this blog 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.

Return to Blogspot

Well, I'm returning my blog to Blogspot. It's easier, I won't continually forget my password and I can post video! Enjoy!