Ephesians 4:11-13 reveals God’s “open secret” for elevating the Church in Her authority and testimony. It openly states that the functions of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastors and teachers will build a church that attains to the fullness of Christ – of authority and testimony beyond what we can conjure. But in that bold declaration also embeds a call to grace, forgiveness, and mercy — to maintain teamwork amidst the natural tensions that can arise from these functions’ differing priorities and temperaments. The authority and testimony of the “fullness of Christ” demands that we embrace grace, forgiveness, and mercy.
Too often, we see tensions flair between apostolic dreamers always driving expansion projects and pastors/teachers who may see greater priority with ministering to people’s needs. How about pitting a motivator evangelist who sees opportunity in every opportunity against the discerning and cautious voice a prophetic analyst? The orderly and disciplined teacher can easily take offense at a visionary apostle’s scattered ideas, or a charismatic evangelist’s “hand-waving” sales pitch. Even Paul and Barnabas, two of the church’s greatest contributors, had to separate in sharp disagreement from a clash of apostolic/prophetic versus pastoral personalities. God seems to have designed into these functions a condition favorable for spawning “offenses”. But why?
Overcoming the offenses from these “natural tensions” may be Jesus’ way to qualify us as stewards of His powerful authority and testimony. For this reason, MTC 2016 will seek the Holy Spirit’s heart on raising up standard bearers of His fruit. The fruit of the Spirit – an outflow of grace, forgiveness, and mercy – “immunes” us to the negative aspects of offenses. This “immunity” also frees us from the impossible task of trying to eliminate offenses around us, and break us from the non-ending cycle of demanding “fairness” and restitution from each other. That is powerful!
Standard bearers for the fruit of the Spirit play a crucial role in building the body – to help the functions of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastors and teachers build “immunity” to offenses that arise from their natural tensions. The heart of MTC’s mandate is to raise up these standard bearers who bear the fruit in grace, forgiveness, and mercy – and ultimately see the church “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. “
May the standard bearers of our generation rise to life with that prophetic breath of Ezekiel 37.
MTC
MTC 2016 – A Theme of Grace, Forgiveness, and Mercy
From Eden in Genesis, to the cross in the Gospels, all the way to the New Jerusalem in Revelation, there winds the thread of one constant theme. That is the theme of grace, forgiveness, and mercy. Jesus sees this theme with such importance that He imprinted it into us through an indelible picture of The Teacher washing His disciples’ feet – the incredulous act of taking other’s offenses against us as our responsibility. What’s more, in this call of a seemingly “upside-down justice”, Jesus assures that we will be blessed if we do it.
Ephesians 4:11-13 helps us see that the more we embrace this theme of washing each other’s feet – for the functions of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor/teacher to work in unity – the closer the Church will manifest the fullness of Christ. We can only start to imagine how this blessing will influence the 7 societal mountains, make disciples of nations, and radiate the beauty of Jesus’ Bride to the end of the earth, so all who see us will want to join us.
Through the many years of straining to articulate a Kingdom strategy and to mobilize the “10,000 market place soldiers”, God has finally taken us to a place of seeing this simple truth: Jesus has predicated the Church’s power and influence on our ability to overcome offenses in the body, through the washing of our brother’s and sister’s feet – of taking other’s offense as our responsibility.
MTC 2016.seeks to establish a platform for raising up Kingdom standard bearers of the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Why? because these are the outflows of grace, forgiveness, and mercy, the elements that encompasses the washing of feet, the elements that builds the body for it to manifests the fullness of Christ.
Unresolved offenses are some of the most stubborn impediments to Church growth today. In that also stands the greatest opportunity for standard bearers of grace, forgiveness, and mercy to rise up and paint that truly extraordinary picture of the Church.
MTC 2016 – An Extraordinary Picture of the Church
Ephesians 4:11-13 declares an extraordinary picture of the Church.
By the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, Paul states that when we get the functions of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to work together, the church will become a body that demonstrates the fullness of Christ. This is extraordinary because it means that Jesus’ extraordinary ministry sets for us the pattern that we should expect to attain to.
Envision a church that serves the needy with the multiplying power of 5 loaves and 2 fishes; a church that can speak restoration of destiny into billions who are living the same shame-driven life as the woman at the well; a church so full of authority that it can compel even the most hardened criminals to repay 4 times of what they owe; a church that solves the world’s most difficult economic problems through the deep wisdom of sacrifice, forgiveness, and mercy.
The bible gave us the revelation and insight to take such a vision to reality. And in the path to that reality lies the challenge of bringing unity to the functions of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. It seems that God’s underlying mandate for us distills down to how each of these functions, in their distinctive personalities and sometime conflicting temperaments, can cover each other in grace – to maintain the unity of the Spirit through the washing of each other’s feet.
We will continue to press forward MTC 2016 by pressing into this mandate – to strive after that extraordinary picture of the Church by building the unity within the functions of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. It would be our honor to step together with you into the fullness of Christ at MTC 2016.
MTC 2015 – eartHEaven – Ministering to Our Children
We would like to share with you a note below from Pastor Mike and Marilyn Seth, our partners in ministering to the children during MTC. Pastor Mike and Marilyn will also minister with the adults through their sharing on the “Culture of Honor”.
Please join us.
—
Dear Parents and Leaders,
We are so honored and excited to be invited to minister to your children during the MTC conference. Our theme, “Uniqueness and Unity” promises to be a week of encountering the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that will equip and release children into their destiny and a lifestyle of Kingdom living.
Our Heavenly Father has chosen us, His body, to represent and demonstrate His goodness, love and power to a hurting world. Our purpose is to fulfill the very words of Jesus’ prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.’(Matthew 6:11). We can accomplish this as we walk, not only in our own individual uniqueness, but also as we walk together in unity, love, and value for one another.
Lessons will be focused on how we can learn to walk in unity by:
- Knowing how much our Father God loves and values us.
- Understanding that each one of us is a unique piece of a puzzle, that makes up one picture.
- Learning how forgiveness brings freedom to all.
- Speaking God’s words(prophecy) to one another.
- How honoring others helps us to discover the treasure in people.
- Being a friend like Jesus
- The need to have a strong godly character to walk out our destiny everyday
Each session will be a time of teaching and imparting Biblical truths in fun and impacting ways. Your children will be involved in these lessons, spend time soaking in God’s presence, journal about their encounters, play games, learn Bible verses , worship, and have fun!
God is good, and when children learn of His goodness and love for them personally, they will develop a strong affection for their Heavenly Father. This affection for God will then be directed outward to those around them, family, friends and those in the world.
Please join us in praying that God will have His way, and that this conference will be one of revelation, empowerment, and transformation for our children.
Blessings and joy,
Mike and Marilyn Seth
MTC 2015 – eartHEaven – Test of Faithfulness
For the past twenty-one years, God has given us MTC as one of His vehicles to prepare Christ’s Bride, to prepare Her as a steward who can be entrusted with authority that influences the world’s governments and economies. The Church must expect to exercise such authority if we are called to make disciples of nations. And our ability to succeed in that great commission rests on our ability to successfully steward our authority.
Stewardship is built upon obedience and humility. God has used MTC to impart to us those disciplines – by testing our perseverance and putting our passion, that is often mixed with ambition, to the refining fire. God has not led us to build MTC into a mega conference with all the exciting incentives to draw large crowds. But year after year, one generation after another, He asks us the same questions, “Are you faithful to my call? Do you serve my Bride with unselfishness and humility? Can I entrust you with greater authority?”
God has blessed MTC with excellent programs and powerful experiences of praise worship. But the undercurrent for all of these is His intent to prepare Christ’s Bride as a faithful steward of authority. So we invite you to take hold of the opportunity that God has prepared, and come drink together from this 21 year wellspring that has weathered the test of time and generational connection.
For a groom, no one else is more important to him than the bride and their preparation for marriage. For Jesus, nothing is more important to Him in all creation than His Bride and her preparation. Our hearts burn for a Bride who is pure and without blemish.
MTC 2015 – eartHEaven – Privilege to Serve the Church
The early registration for MTC2015 ends on November 9th. With early registration, you will receive a $10 voucher useful for meals and other items offered at the conference.
Please also book your Marriott room as soon as possible to be sure you receive the $64 USD deeply discounted conference rate.
For transportation services to/from airport to hotel, please refer to this link. For questions, please contact our transportation coordinator, Brother Suchong Hua at huasc1@gmail.com. If you are traveling from overseas, please forward to Brother Hua and I your itinerary.
It is a privilege for us to build the Church by serving you.
MTC 2015 – eartHEaven – a Banquet
MTC2015, our 21st session, is about a month away and we would like to share with you some exciting details about this year’s gathering:
- Mike and Marilyn Seth, who God used in great ways to help build the Bethel Church ministry with Bill Johson, will join our team once again in ministering to our children, parents, and all who long after a deeper touch of the Holy Spirit.
- In addition, God has given us another double blessing by bringing back Joon Hwang to ignite us in the Spirit’s fire, Fred Lin to offer us insights for living as a market place witness, and Robby Dawkins to deepen our faith as we take up the Joseph, Moses, David, and Daniel callings of our generation.
- And for our second generation, we have Tim Brasic back with us – to once again impart the example of excelling in this world by living out Christ’s heavenly value system.
- Most importantly, please intercede with us by visiting the MTC prayer page. The prayer topics are prepared and updated weekly by our prayer team. We strongly encourage you to connect-in for the next 4 weeks and beyond in interceding for God’s Kingdom work among us.
Please register through this link.
Also, reserve your room at the deeply discounted Marriott rate at this link.
Last and not least, our beloved “Auntie” Mei-Lien will travel from Taiwan to minister with us this year. MTC started in 1995 by the Kingdom messages the Holy Spirit spoke through her. Now twenty-one years later, we stand in great anticipation of a renewed touch of the Spirit through her ministry. Many of us have greatly benefited from our “Auntie” over the years. As such, it would greatly encourage her to see you again and to share with her about your Kingdom journey.
For this Jubilee year, we look forward to a time of renewal, reconnect, reconciliation, and seeing heaven’s mercy manifested here on earth.
MTC 2015 – eartHEaven
MTC2015, our 21st year, is coming up in November 25th – 29th.
Over the years, God has used MTC as a platform to equip us, to connect us, to speak to us, to inspire us, to test our faith, to refine our hearts, and ultimately, to prepare His church for the coming great harvest. By His grace, we are seeing our 3rd generation beginning to serve in supporting MTC. And we believe that from this Jubilee year, God will elevate us to a season of great renewal in unity and authority. In that, we invite you to stand with us on this 21-year foundation of faithfulness, and be touched by the Holy Spirit with a fresh impartation to carry forward His Kingdom commission.
MTC 2014: Connecting the Generations – On Earth as it is in Heaven
God has always led MTC to set a priority in connecting the generations.
Over the years, we have maintain a steadfastness in fully engaging our second generation with all aspects of ministry – in culture and language, even though it may seem inconvenient at times. Moreover, we hold a strong conviction in focusing generous resources to our young people because we believe such is the value system of bringing heaven on earth. This year, the Lord has blessed us with one of the best minister teams for children and their parents – Pastor Mike and Marilyn Seth.
Mike and Marilyn are founders of “Kids In His Presence Ministries” and are producers of “God-Friendly” resource materials. Mike has authored, “Here Comes Heaven”, a children’s version of “When Heaven Invades Earth” by Bill Johnson.
Please follow this link for details of the MTC Children’s Program with Mike and Marilyn.
In addition to ministering with the children, Mike and Marilyn will also minister to the parents and anyone who has a heart for the next generation. They will share their experiences and insights on topics like:
God’s Blueprint for a Kingdom Home,
Preschoolers in Papa’s Presence,
and my favorite…
Recognizing and Releasing Our Children’s “Giftings”
The Marriott special rate of $63/night is still available. Even if you live in the Chicago area, we strongly encourage you to stay with us at the hotel for greater fellowship and a deeper conference experience. Please visit this site today to make your room reservations. Do not worry about the cut-off date – the discount rate will still apply.
Follow these links for:
Registration
Hotel Reservation – $63 USD/Night Special Rate
Theme Narrative – “On Earth as it is in Heaven”
Speaker Team
Program Schedule
Feel free to forward this note to your friends and fellowship groups. We look forward to serving you.
MTC 2014: Registration Reminder – On Earth as it is in Heaven
Just a friendly reminder here to register for MTC 2014. The last day for the $10 conference voucher is fast approaching (November 10th). Please follow this link to register – it only takes a few minutes.
Also, the special rate of $63/night for the Marriott is guaranteed though November 14th. Please visit this site today to make your room reservations.
Please follow these links for:
Registration
Theme Narrative – “On Earth as it is in Heaven”
Speaker Team
Program Schedule
Hotel Reservation – $63 USD/Night Special Rate
Please forward this note to your friends and fellowship groups. We look forward to serving you.