great day on the battlefield

I spent the day showing my Aussie friends Mark and Gayle around the Gettysburg Battlefield today. Gorgeous sunshine, good friends,and this town. Gettysburg is an amazing place. The ground hallowed by the sacrifice of more than 7000 deaths, and 51,000 total dead, missing, or wounded, makes this a place Americans come to consider the past and grapple with the stain of slavery, division, and war.

My friends asked why the South lost, and it's hard to explain. There are legends of killer angels who showed up on the battlefield, that soldiers of both sides witnessed. General Lee's orders were confused or carried out poorly by generals and soldiers who loved doing what he said and believed in his leadership. Bottom line? It seems like God intervened at Gettysburg.

President Lincoln's history is also interestingly tweaked up in this town. He wrote the famous Gettysburg Address on the train way here, and reported that he had his first real encounter with God in this trip, and that God become truly personal to him here.

John Wega calls this "the altar of the nation", where Americans come to process our historical evils, and try to learn how to become better people. John and I dreamed together today about a house of prayer where tourists come to see and pray for the future of this nation. I am also dreaming of our town being part of a huge sweeping move toward God through new churches being planted, which will bring in hundreds of thousands of new believers into the grace of God.

So in the past few weeks I have had huge breakthroughs,... and major setbacks. But I also have the Holy Spirit whispering in my ear that this is going to be good and He is working both ends against the middle to help us get great things done. I believe it more than ever.

In the next 8 years, we will plant more than 100 life giving churches. In the next 18, we are believing to plant more than 1000. It's going to take God making the enemy have a Gettysburg of a day, and killer angels to help us out, but I think it will get done. I am convinced that God wants this done far more than I do. I am also convinced that if I don't do it, others will, because ultimately, it is HIM doing it.

I just feel very honored to be involved.