The prophet's handbook

Special Precaution Pastors, be wary of lone prophets who have neither church accountability for their ministries nor a reputable company of their peers to whom they voluntarily answer. Pastors, if prophets have not come up under your ministry, someone somewhere should be able to tell you about their prophetics and ministry before you even meet with them. Press for details of their ministry experiences prior to releasing them in your church. Rigid reliance upon the Holy Spirit for revelatory confirmation of those you trust for prophetic ministry is acceptable. Nevertheless, it should be infrequent and not a routine substitute for reliable screening practices. Even spiritual decisions require practical due diligence. The wisdom of God’s Word dictates this for the protection of the pastor and the church. I have learned over the years that when brothers and sisters in the Lord first meet each other, their introduction is likely to be primarily spirit to spirit, and this is good. However, not all working relationships stay on that plane all the time. Therefore, pastor and prophet should want to get to know each other flesh to flesh; that is, the two of you may want to take time to get acquainted with one another’s human sides. The Church Prophet Do you recall how I said God awakens young prophets? It is often in private, which lends itself to immature prophets’ resistance to established church authority. We talked much about this elsewhere. In this section we overview the chain of events that occurs when God alerts a person that he or she is a prophet. The information to follow is not given to show that the Lord’s methods are wrong, but rather to show that the darkness in humanity can yield the early results that can usually make new prophets surly and unpleasant. Pride is always at the root of the human heart, and the call to the prophetic surfaces it quickly. That is what happens with new prophets. Since young prophetic messengers get their start from God in secret, they feel such a start means they are never to submit to anyone but God. This attitude makes for turbulent times, as we have shown, and all too often ends with the novice prophet leaving the church and the frustrated pastor being left to deal with the wake of disaster the neophyte may have left behind. Meanwhile, the young prophet is most likely outside the camp of the Lord and away from the safety of the ark, embittered, embattled, and now wary of prophetics in the future. If there had been a medium between the two—the budding prophet and the busy and protective pastor—maybe things could have turned out differently.