After returning home from the Three Streams Ignited (3SI) Conference this past July, I was asked by several people to write about my thoughts afterwards. Usually when that sort of thing happens (confirmation of two or more), I find it easy to step up, and gladly.In this case however, there were a couple of problems: The first problem was that writing is not my preferred creative medium, and nearly all of my written contributions to the world, due to my previous career, take the form of 20 years-worth of police incident or investigative reports. “Just the facts”, in other words. It is impossible to do that here, so I’m starting way out of my comfort zone. The second problem was worse: I found it very difficult to wrap my head around the experience. If you were there, you may feel the same way. It was powerful.
I will start by saying that I was very excited about attending the 3SI event for the full year leading up to it. From my perspective it began the year before at the 2024 North American Convocation in Orlando. The Convocation itself was an amazing week, and,following the last evening service of the week on Friday, the announcement was made that the 3SI conference was scheduled for July of this year. I have felt for quite some time now that there would be something special about the generation among us that has grownup in the CEC. The generation that has no memory of anything outside the CEC, as it pertains to their religious walk or experience. At the Convocation in the summer of 2024,it became clear that the Lord was moving within that generation. As soon as it was announced that night, I knew that I wanted to go. Not because I am from that generation(I’m not), but because I wanted to be where the Lord is, and I knew He would be there. As it happened, I was sitting at my desk when the registration email first went out some months later, and I registered immediately (I found out later that I was the first one to register, which didn’t surprise me, as fast as I responded and as excited as I was). A couple of weeks later I received a call from Deacon Jesse Harris where I was asked to speak on one of the conference days.
As many of you already know, I prefer to drive to these things as opposed to fly. I have no fear of air travel, I’ve done it many, many times. It’s just that I’ve found that the long drives are, for me, a great way to spend some time with the Lord. I have also come to find that the Lord meets me on these road trips every single time, so I have come to have a certain level of anticipation and expectancy. This trip was no different. It took three days there and three days back, with an average daily time in the seat of about 11 hours. On the evening of the second day I stayed on the Navajo Reservation just inside the eastern border of northern Arizona. That evening, a friend told me that, if I had the opportunity and had never been, I should drive through the Sedona, AZ countryside. The next morning, very early, I left for the third and last leg to California and, a few hours later, I saw the signs for Sedona. GPS wanted me to go north, but Sedona was south. I went south. I didn’t know when I would be this way again. Seemingly suddenly, I found myself in some of the most beautiful countryside I had ever seen anywhere. Many of the natural wonders of the area that I had only seen on postcards rose up before me. Even though it had already added an hour to my drive to Cali, I stopped several times to take it all in, promising myself that I would return and spend some time there someday soon.
I made a mistake though: I fueled-up as I was leaving Sedona, and I should have fueled up again, as I was leaving Phoenix headed through the Mojave Desert toward Los Angeles. I didn’t know it, but there were no gas stations or truck stops across the desert for 4.5 hours. It was 108 degrees in the desert that day, and fires in the area of the Grand Canyon had caused the entire desert to fill with a fine mist of wood smoke. My conversation with the Lord went from awe and wonder at the beauty of His creation to fervent prayer that I would find a gas station and not be stranded in the middle of a geographical oven. I even “drafted” behind an onion truck to save gas, repenting at not carrying a spare gas can and promising myself I would not make that mistake again. Finally, with the Low Fuel light on and with under 2 gallons left in the tank, I found a gas station. The gas there was $5.86 per gallon, and I was relieved to pay it. The rest of my drive to San Clemente was uneventful.
On that drive across the desert, “fear’ was not the word I would use to describe how I felt.I had some anxiety certainly, but I knew I would be taken care of. One way or the other,my Father would take care of me. Of that, I had no doubt. He had someplace He needed me to be. Starting on that day though, then continuing through the rest of the conference and ever since, Ezekiel 47’s description of the river that flows from the City of God kept returning to my Spirit like a prayer:
The River From the Temple
47“The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 Hethen brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side.
3 As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits[a] and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. 4 He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. 5 He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 6 He asked me,“Son of man, do you see this?”
Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. 8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah,[b] where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. 10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. 11 But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”
We have talked a lot lately within the Communion of the CEC about “The River”. The Three Streams of the Charismatic, the Evangelical and the Liturgical/Sacramental aspects of our expression of The Faith come together make up “The River”. Two things about this passage from Ezekiel stuck out to me:
First, everything lives where the River runs. There is no lack of fruitfulness and provision in The River. Many “kinds”, both of fish and of fruit. There is no lack of Life. On the contrary, there is Life in abundance. There is no Death. In fact:“Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit,because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”
Second, for the first time I noticed something about the measuring and the depth of the river earlier in the chapter:
3 As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits[a] and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. 4 He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. 5 He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 6 He asked me,“Son of man, do you see this?”
So many Believers spend all their lives ankle-deep, knee-deep or waist-deep in The River, where things can be measured, but in verse 5&6:
5 He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross,because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 6 He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”
Everyone who stays where they are; ankle, knee or waist-deep will always see the same scenery. They’ll never move from where things can be measured. When we go where The River cannot be measured, we’re swept off our feet. Traveling now at the pace of The River, we get to see what The River sees. It’s not where we started.
6 He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”
I grew up in the Church. Growing up in the Church is one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. One of my earliest memories is giving my heart to Jesus in my bedroom, on my knees, at three years old, with my father kneeling beside me. But, at age fifteen, after three services a week my entire life to that point, I was in a service where the minister was preaching from the Second chapter of Acts, and I remember looking around at the state of The Church and thinking, “Is this it? Is this what Christianity has become?” I did not see or experience (except rarely) “Second Chapter of Acts” moments. I remember feeling deeply saddened by this. Ten years later, at 25 years old, I found myself and our entire family in the CEC. My father, who had been a minister my entire life, had followed the Holy Spirit (and some definite “God moments”) and, for the first time in his life, had pioneered a new CEC church. My oldest of four children was the second infant baptized in our new little CEC congregation, which was meeting in a funeral home. One Sunday,sitting in that little funeral home chapel, with only 25 or 30 people there, I realized, “This is it! This is The Church!”. Everything I had noticed conspicuously absent when I was a teenager was here in abundance in this little congregation, in this little denomination known as the Charismatic Episcopal Church. Love, Joy, Peace…all the Fruits. Miracles,too!
6 He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”
I’m 53 now, and that child, my oldest daughter, has a child of her own. At the 3SIConference, as I looked around the Sanctuary of St. Michael’s in San Clemente, I saw dozens of young men and women just like her. So many of them baptized as infants into what was at that time a new, exciting move of God. A congregation of men and women raised in The River, with the fervent desire to see His face. I am so excited to see what the Lord has in store for us. I am so excited to see where The River is taking us!
Everything lives where The River runs.