None of us can deny what God is doing in our church. We can see it. We can feel it. We can sense it. Through different collective prophetic words, worship experiences and time together, messages preached, and worship songs released it is evident. God is also revealing it to many of us in the private, speaking of a new season unlike we have ever experienced. Recently, Chris Mendez, one of our lead pastors from Latin America, boldly preached “what if the last forty years of our church were to prepare us for the next forty years!”
There is an increase in our unity for God. There is a revival happening. We see it on Sunday morning across our global church locations. We also saw an outpouring of it this past month at our Australia Conference and have the same expectation for our conference in October in the UK. The move of God we are experiencing is bigger than any of us. The visual picture of our church all worshipping God takes my breath away. We are a beautiful multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-racial global church. We are located in more than twenty-eight nations, so many different colors and cultures represented. In unity we are asking God to, “do something new, something we can’t shake;” as prayed at the beginning of conference by one of our Australia staff Ahlaya Tiumalu.
The new thing God is doing is truly wonderful.
In Revelation 7:9-10 we read, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
I do not think any of us can argue that this is in part what is happening. We are increasingly becoming a Revelation 7:9 church. As we come together in an increase in unity for God to move, we are also coming together in unity in all our beautiful cultures and colors. This is not something to minimize. In Psalm 133:1 it says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head.”
There is so much to unpack in Revelation 7, but for this context let us just focus on a few aspects. Although we will never know with certainty why God mentions some details and not others in the Bible, we can with some amount of confidence assume it is because the details He includes are important to Him. God mentions every nation, tribe, people, and languages. That God takes the time to mention these details still astounds me. God did not have to give us those details but chose to.
My own immigrant stories bring a depth to the scriptures that reference languages, cultures, and ethnicities. The little Faroese girl in me celebrates when I read God’s word and see His heart for all people. In Acts it is so powerful when we see what God did when the early church in unity came together. It is still so powerful when we as a 2024 church come together.
At conference one of our Global Senior Pastors, Pastor Phil Dooley boldly spoke about this: “I love the church, diverse, full of beautiful people from all different cultural backgrounds, united around Jesus. And we all have a responsibility to serve and to help and encourage each other.” Pastor Phil highlighted that unity is not just kumbaya, it also involves justice work as described in the Bible in Micah 6:8.
Pastor Phil shared these words after asking one of our volunteers to pray in their native language, which was Korean, and after talking with a local beloved Indigenous pastor about NAIDOC week.
The truth is we cannot even begin to imagine the new thing God is doing in our church. We simply can’t as God is so much bigger, creative, and good than any of our human ideas. The Bible testifies of this from Genesis to Revelation. This has me on the edge of my seat with expectation. This has me on my knees in humility. Praying daily for our global church for God to continue the new holy and anointed thing we are experiencing. Also praying daily for a continued increase in our unity specifically focused on every nation, tribe, people, and language.
At conference, another one of our Lead Pastors Nicola Douglass prayed the following prophetic prayer. She prayed “for the church of Jesus Christ. Of every city and of every nation. For a new awakening, for a new revival in every church. Breathe again on your church. Come alive in the name of Jesus Christ. Set us ablaze again. May the mark of the church be hunger. Mark us with an unsaturable prayer. We are called to the ecclesia, to stand out!”
In a world marked by division it is easy to stand out, to be the ecclesia. Unity amid differences is not the norm in many of our global nations. As a church we have a holy and joy-filled Biblical invitation to model unity in our beautiful differences to the world. To continue to come together in unity asking God to set us ablaze.
Near the end of conference, our other Global Senior Pastor Lucinda Dooley brought a powerful word. She also taught us a chant to help us in the days and months. The words were:
“We are the Lord’s, and no one could be prouder!
If you cannot hear us, we will shout a little louder!”
Written by:
Hillsong Global Unity, Maria Hansen-Quine
We acknowledge all First Peoples of the beautiful lands on which we live and celebrate their enduring knowledge and connections to Country. We honor the wisdom of and pay respect to Elders past and present.
Oct 10 2024