Rev. Dr. Delesslyn A. Kennebrew, J.D., M.Div.
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Visionary Strategist Faithful Innovator Inspirational Essayist
Visionary Strategist Faithful Innovator Inspirational Essayist
Salvation and Stilettos Blog
Salvation and Stilettos Blog
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HAPPY NEW YEAR! My Reflections on My Holy Week Revival
| Posted on April 15, 2017 at 8:40 AM |
comments (3)
|
 April 15, 2017 Humming… “I just want to
THANK YOU-U Lord…” Greetings! Friends, I do not know if you
are familiar with the revivals of old.
The revivals hosted by churches that lasted a full week and the guest
evangelist preached every night like it was their last. Do you remember how each night had a
different population emphasis – Youth Night, Women’s Night, Men’s Night, Healing
Night, Bring a Friend Who Really Needs Jesus Night? Revivals of old were week-long gatherings to
call people to repentance, restoration, righteousness, and rejoicing. I know I would be worn out physically but
excited spiritually at the end of summer revival at my home church. Week long revivals are
somewhat obsolete these days and have turned into month long revivals hosted on
the same night as your regular Bible Study because pastors know or assume the
congregation will probably not commit to going to church every night for a week
unless it is your denominational, musical, or popular preaching personality’s
annual convention, convocation, or conference.
Churches have also opted for a three-night revival with a different
preacher each night in an effort to peak interests and keep people coming
because who wants to hear the same person three nights in a row? [Sarcasm Intended] And while
the traditional notions of hosting week long revivals may have evolved through the
years, the necessity for our need of revival has remained the same. We ALL need to be intentional
about creating our own revival and we do not have to wait for our local church
to do that. You can initiate a time
where you get the spiritual jolt you need to intensify your relationship with
the Lord and increase the expectation of yourself to answer the call to serve
and build the Kingdom of God. We all
need a revival of the soul, reawakening our spiritual consciousness so that we
can experience God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. We need revivals to open our hearts to the
ways we need to be renewed for the journey and open our eyes to see how we can
help others experience the same hope and provision that comes when we actually
obey the Greatest Commandment to love God, love ourselves, and to love our
neighbors as we love ourselves. Well, friends, this has been
that kind of week for me. It has been
full of the Word, and Worship. It has
been a time for me to reflect and respond to God’s call in new ways. It has been a week of revival without the
guest evangelist or the themed nights.
It has been a week of service, gratitude, prayer, preaching, and
praise. On Monday evening I sat with a
friend for a few hours who was not feeling the best. On Tuesday, I led the prayer at a Holy Week
Prayer Service with an evangelistic emphasis and my prayer focused on believers
having the compassion, courage, and conviction to live a life full of God’s
light shining in and through us. On
Wednesday, I taught a group of church leaders a lesson on their responsibility to
be watchful over the flock and to not be afraid to address the false prophets
or false teachings that come through the mouths of wolves in sheep’s
clothing. On Thursday, a group of
friends and I launched The Living Room Christian Fellowship, an ecumenical gathering
of believers who come together to seek, to serve, and to celebrate….more on
that later. And on Friday, I preached
the second of the seven last words, “Today, you shall be with me in paradise.” I preached it from the perspective and as a
testimony of the thief who received that promise from Jesus on the cross. Friends, I have been in
revival this entire Holy Week. I have
cried, repented, recommitted, fasted, prayed, witnessed, and rejoiced. And words cannot express how blessed I am as
I have been reminded everyday this week of God’s amazing love! I have been revived. I have been revived so much so, and I have mentioned
this before, that I feel as if NOW is the time to say HAPPY NEW YEAR! As we look at the full spectrum of the Gospel
message from Good Friday to early Sunday morning, as much as I celebrate Jesus birth
and His entrance into this earthly realm, I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving
and praise that he came to die and he rose just for me! The grave is empty and he is the risen King
of Kings and Lord of Lords, now seated at the right hand of the Almighty God! Hallelujah!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Now, I want to backtrack for
a minute because I just have to say something more about the launch of The
Living Room Christian Fellowship. WOW! Ok. Yes, I know I need to say something more than
WOW! And I will… in just a second…
but WOW! This week was the inaugural
gathering of The Living Room Christian Fellowship. Nearly two years ago, the Holy Spirit
impressed upon me a vision for a gathering of believers for Word, Conversation,
and Communion. The vision was to create
an alternative worship experience with the intention of hosting it in a space
that embodied the name. In other words, this space needed to be a fresh, comfortable,
hospitable place that nurtured spiritual growth, deep conversations, authentic relationships. And it could only last for one hour. I will not go into every instruction that I
was given regarding The Living Room, but suffice it to say that everything that
is present and everything that takes place in that space is intentional and my
humble attempt to be obedient. I will be
very honest with you though. When I first
received this vision, I did not think that it was for me. I was thinking about ways I could share it
with the church I was serving at the time or even how I might can share it with
other pastor friends of mine. But I
never did. I actually did not tell
anyone what I had been thinking and praying about for about one year. I was just dreaming, and planning, and
envisioning, and praying for clarity and confidence to do ministry differently. I will definitely write more about my process
in the future because I believe it could help others who are considering
initiating a new ministry initiative or even help other church leaders to
revive their current place of service. On Thursday, we launched The Living
Room Christian Fellowship and it looked and felt even better than I had
dreamed. I am so grateful to EVERYONE
for their prayers, presence, “Like” or “Share” on Facebook and Instagram,
financial support, words of encouragement and congratulations, and positive
thoughts in our direction. Above all,
THANK YOU LORD for choosing to give me this vision and for already providing
the provision to bring it to pass. THANK
YOU for the many Thursday nights we will have to introduce Christ, have
conversations about Christ, and celebrate Christ through Communion. THANK YOU for the people who will be drawn to
The Living Room and how they will find new friends who want to see EVERYONE
experience LIFE, LOVE, LIBERATION, and LAUGHTER in Christ! THANK YOU LORD for a space where revival can
happen every week because we all need it and we all should want to share this
grace with others. THANK YOU LORD for
family and friends who believe in YOU and ME.
THANK YOU LORD for The Living Room Christian Fellowship. This is YOUR Space. May we honor YOU and YOUR sons and daughters,
our friends and guests, who will gather with us there. HAPPY NEW YEAR, my friends! HAPPY NEW YEAR! Revive us again, fill each
heart with Thy love May each soul be rekindled
with fire from above Hallelujah! Thine the Glory! Hallelujah! Amen! Hallelujah! Thine the Glory! Revive us again! GOD LOVES YOU and I DO TOO!!! Delesslyn |
YOU Already Have "IT!"
| Posted on April 9, 2017 at 4:35 AM |
comments (0)
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| Greetings! BlogFam, Have you ever been looking for something only to discover that IT was around you, close to you, or maybe even IN you the whole time? I have. I have looked for shades that were on top of my head. I have looked for car keys that were in the side pocket of my purse - exactly where I had left them. I have looked for encouragement that was in the Word of God. I have looked for inspiration that was already in my own testimony. I have looked for so many things that were already around me or close to me, and even INside of me. I share this because - well, the Spirit impressed me to get up and write this at almost 3am in the morning LOL - but I share this also because it is so TRUE. There are so many things that I have looked for that I already had and for one reason or another, I felt like what I already had was just not enough for the task, the vision, the relationship, the opportunity, or whatever I needed to do or how I felt I needed to be or look in the moment. For so many different reasons - fear, self-doubt, internalized discouragement from the mouths of haters or doubters - we, I, have pressed pause on our progress because we do not feel we have what it takes. But the truth of the matter is that WE DO. We DO have whatever it takes in the moment that we need to have IT. And for this truth, I am grateful. I am grateful because before the Lord formed me in my mother's womb as Jeremiah testifies, God knew me. God shaped me for EVERY Kingdom assignment that was to come my way WHENEVER it came my way. And whether or not I felt ready, I was, in fact, ready because I already had IT. IT is everything we think we need and everything God knows we need that has already been placed INside of us from the womb and has been subsequently developed throughout our life's journey. YOU already have IT! I already have IT! WE already have IT! So, why do we keep looking for IT? We keep looking because we are scared to let others know we have IT. We are insecure because our IT does not look like someone else's IT. We are embarrassed because the IT we have has not seemed to give us an edge in the past. So, we all keep looking for IT only to delay, dismiss, deny our own progress because it is often easier to ignore IT than to use IT that is already INside of us. It is just easy to keep looking for something we already have because then we can stay in our comfort zones without ruffling too many feathers or drawing too much attention to ourselves, or without walking BY FAITH and NOT by sight. Friends, YOU ALREADY HAVE IT! YOU DO! I am not lying to you or trying to manipulate you into thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. YOU really do already have IT. So, USE IT! And even as I say this to you, I am preaching to my own self too. Did you see that picture above in today's blog? Well, that is part of my IT. Over two years ago, the Lord gave me a vision about a ministry that I most certainly thought was an amazing idea for someone else. I did not think that I had what it would take for it to become all that it can and will become through me. I remember the moment the vision was dropped into my Spirit during private worship. I will never forget it. But I immediately thought, "Oh, this would be GREAT as a ministry for someone's church." I did not want to even consider the truth that I already had what it would take for this vision to come to fruition through me. I was so used to serving under the leadership of other pastors in ways that often denied my own gifts simply because I wanted to be "in line" with the vision of the house OR I did not want to push certain boundaries of job, familial, or social expectations so I sat on this vision. But IT would not let me go! EVERY church I went to, the Spirit would whisper, this is not IT. And I am not saying anything is "wrong" with them as much as they were not right for the vision that God had given to me. I sat on this vision, yet taking notes, re-imagining "church," developing ideas about culture and execution that I had never experienced. Until one day, a friend of mine, a distant friend of mine who I had not seen in a number of years saw me and said "Delesslyn, IT IS TIME." And immediately, I knew that was deep calling to deep. I knew and I cried like a baby. I cried tears of JOY, the kind of tears that come when the alarm clock has gone off in your spirit to awaken your PURPOSE for the next season. I cried because I knew that it was time. I cried because in that moment, almost one year to the day that the vision was deposited into my spirit, I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that I had IT and this assignment was not for anyone else but me. So, after nearly two years of prayer and fasting, preparation and research, we will launch THE LIVING ROOM CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP. The Living Room Christian Fellowship is an ecumenical gathering of believers who come together to seek, to serve, and to celebrate. Our vision is for ALL believers to experience LIFE, LOVE, LIBERATION,and LAUGHTER in Christ. We will launch on THIS Thursday, April 13, 2017 at the Clarkston Community Center, 7-8pm. [www.thelivingroomCF.com] [Watch Promo Video on YouTube Here: https://youtu.be/8SKrf9IlXCs] THANK YOU GOD and to GOD be ALL the Glory for this wonderful thing that God is doing in my life! THANK YOU GOD for placing IT inside of me! THANK YOU GOD for the opportunity for me to set off alarms in the spirit of others to awaken their life's purpose! THANK YOU GOD that WE already have IT! All Glory be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy SpirIT!!! God Loves You and I Do Too! Delesslyn P.S. - Let THIS Bless YOU!!! |