The prophet's handbook

encouraged in the church. At the same time, have frank conversations with trusted colleagues about your fears to defuse tensions and enable you to take on a very important and far-reaching part of shepherding, that of nurturing, guiding, and facilitating a new officer’s promotion in the Lord’s kingdom. It is a great call, but unfortunately, many dutiful pastors overlook or shun it. Pastors who boldly and competently take on the development of the prophetic not only facilitate its positive initiation in their churches, but also will reduce new prophets’ potential to seduce the membership with mesmerizing prophetics. Pastors, be sure your new prophets understand that causing a church member to turn on his or her pastor is a deadly proposition, and according to Ezekiel 13:1– 16, courts the Lord’s wrath and can cost the prophet his or her place in God’s eternal assembly. When All Options Are Exhausted Conversely, prophets who find their pastors resistant to their call to the office and/or its operations, beware. If a pastor is truly dead set against your prophetic growth and manifestation in the church, seek a release from God to leave. Situations this dire can get tricky, however. Sometimes new prophets want to exercise their ministries so badly that they believe their brief encounters with God and the few early words He gives them to say are all that are needed to get going. They are unwilling to hear about grooming, training, seasoning, and proving, so they become difficult to handle. Impulsive and self-willed, they turn surly and unruly, becoming disrespectful and impudent. In young prophets’ minds, God has spoken to them directly and that makes them just as knowledgeable of His ways as those who have gone before them. Talking sense, especially God’s sense, to many of them at this point is impossible as they sit before you, arrogant and defiant. In their minds, all you (pastors) want to do is sit on their ministries. Ironically, they feel you are holding them back because you are somehow jealous of their brand new gift and threatened by it. The leviathan spirit is all over them at this point as they reek with pride. Read Job 41 and pay particular attention to the last few verses. These neophytes are creating a case to turn on the pastor, penetrate the church with their untempered prophecies, and gain a sympathetic following to serve them in the bargain. Shunning Human Instruction Courts Divine Chastening After several attempts to reason with headstrong prophets, pastors finally