One of the circles I have moved in the past is Global Awakening with Randy Clark. The message of healing and deliverance that is connected to the gospel is something I believe biblically and spiritually. However, in the years I was away from doing anything with global, many people came and left. One of them was Kim Maas.
Earlier this year, I was going to a meeting with Randy Clark and she was the speaker. She was going to be talking about the subject of this book, Prophetic Community. I got on Amazon and ordered it because I wanted to have as much knowledge about what I was getting myself into as possible.
To be honest, I did not know anything about her. What I did know was she was Foursquare (I assume that being Foursquare, you were a divorced Assemblies of God preacher to be real!) I also knew that had been overseas with Global Awakening but I had never met her or seen her minister until this meeting I was at in Woodbridge, Virginia.
Reading the book (and hearing her speak), I did have some issues with the doctrine and especially one of the people she interviewed but to be honest, I agreed with much more than I disagreed with.
Let’s look at the good, the bad and the confusing.
The good: Connecting Prophecy with the Apostolic
The core of the book is that you can not have biblical church life according to the New Testament without the operation of the prophetic. I completely agree with this. I have said this myself many times. Romans 8:14 makes it even clearer. You are not biblical saved without hearing the voice of the Lord personally.
Many of her concerns about how personal prophecy should operate is solid. I fully agree that we need more of it and in the Pentecostal churches. While I could not sign off on her views that public prophecy is a concern; I do agree that there needs to be some changes in how prophet to person words are released. There is still a place for the prophetic person who stands up on Sunday and says “Thus saith the Lord.” I love those words very much and don’t see a need for a checklist.
In the book, Kim Maas says that being a prophetic community is much more than people having prophetic ministries. I agree. She paints the picture of a church full of lay people that all hear the voice of the Lord and operate in the function in every area of life. I also believe this is the apostolic model laid out for us in the Book of Acts.
The bad: the interviews
In her book, she interviewed several people with “prophetic ministries.” Some of were John Paul Jackson, Cindy Jacobs, Larry Randolph, and Kris Vallotton. Some of these I have serious challenges with even considering them a true prophetic voice. Jacobs wildly destroyed the prophetic ministry in the Philippines by giving a false prophecy about a pastor becoming President. John Paul Jackson operated in a mixture of spirits and mixed new age teaching with Pentecostal doctrine. He was the center of much of the “Kansas City Prophets” mess. Vallotton has serious theological challenges. Randolph is a solid voice but is also challenged doctrinally.
Simply put, I would have found a better list of prophetic voices to interview. I would think David Ravenhill, David Wilkerson, Carlos Annocondia and others would have been a much better list of prophetic voice that can be trusted among Pentecostals. That would have been my shortlist at least. I prefer men and women that operate at at least 75%!
Having dealt with some of the people that were part of Streams Ministries, I found using John Paul Jackson, a man that was removed from ministry twice for witchcraft to be very hard to accept as a legit voice on the role of the prophetic ministry. I also find that his advice of integrity to be laughable. His complete lack of it was the center of the “Kansas City Prophets” scandal.
Speaking of the Kansas City Prophets, the lack of interviews by the people connected to the era was clearly missing. I would have went into the book expecting interviews by Mike Bickle, Paul Cain, Bob Jones and Bob Hartley. None of those were there.
The Confusing: Prophecy vs Encouragement
This is a very common misunderstanding of scripture. Kim Maas uses 1 Corinthians 14:2 to say that all prophetic words should be encouraging. In the book and in the meetings I was in, told stories of how people had “misused” prophecy in giving words of judgement. As a prophetic voice, I completely disagree with this teaching in the strongest terms. A prophet gives the word of the Lord as they get it in the words they get it. We can not add to it and we can not take away from it.
The problem with using 1 Corinthians 14:2 as a proof text it duality in nature. First of all, we are removing the cultural issues related to the text. This is not to mention that chapters and verses did not come until 1551. The whole of what is today 1 Corinthians 12-14 would mean something very different in the Greek! It does not say all prophecy in the passage. It was largely a directive to a church in the first century that had spiritual gifts out of control!
The second issue with it is found in Romans 12:6-8. It is very clear that Paul believed that prophecy and encouragement were two very different spiritual gifts. It would lead me to believe that not all prophecy is encouraging and not all encouragement is prophetic. While a prophetic word can be encouraging, it does not have to be. Judgement can be released in the form of a prophetic word. It happens more than we like to admit.
Theologically, this is the main issue I take with Kim Maas and her book. What you do with 1 Corinthians 14 and Romans 12 is fundamental to the view of the prophetic ministry at work.
