Let the Church Get Pregnant - Again!: The Parallelism of Spirituality and Sexuality

By Dr. Jeff T. Jacobs

A church without an authentic worship experience is merely a social club with a religious overtone. This book is purposed to expose, enlighten, and encourage a greater level of intense intimacy with God through praise and worship. It exposes how sexuality and spirituality are so extremely parallel to each other, giving insight on why sex is so vital in human expression but yet creates an ongoing struggle between spirit and flesh. Prayerfully, this book will inspire the entire religious community to revisit and revive what is called the Azusa Street Movement, where people sought God to the point that an outpouring of God resulted in nonstop days and weeks of signs, wonders, and miracles. This is a clarion call to make God the primary and only focal point of the church, as He should be! Even though we value our Spiritual Leaders, i.e., Pastors, Prophets, Evangelists, Teachers and even Recording Artists, we may have become guilty of prioritizing personalities above God's presence! It's time for the church to get pregnant with the power of God once again. Pregnancy only occurs through intimacy. Read this book...find out where you are in proximity of the throne room.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638444572

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Let the Church Get Pregnant - Again!

The Parallelism of Spirituality and Sexuality

Dr. Jeff T. Jacobs

Copyright © 2021 by Dr. Jeff T. Jacobs

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

—Dr. Jeff Jacobs, Copyright @2001

Preface

"Church just ain’t what it used to be! This is a statement that is seemingly the general consensus of the non-millennial church attendees. Those who are a part of the generations preceding the millennials are expressing a deep discontent and a solemn disappointment over how the church has devolved, what it has become! Thoughts resonate among the mature dedicated churchgoers that the foundational passion toward the House of God has dissipated over the past decades. Whereas the church used to be the focal point and gathering place of both the Christian and the Christian family, it now has taken on a different persona. That identity is dubious or enigmatic, difficult to interpret its purpose. It’s a persona, so said, that is generating a withdrawal of interest and motivation in a physical attendance in the church. Some who used to be avid churchgoers seemingly seldom attend church! They may stream the church service or attend by some other virtual modalities on Sunday mornings. Its current persona tends to yield a mindset that prompts, to many, a vivid view that church is something that we do but not who we are"! Some even scrutinize that the church may have taken on the stage of being a fad and not a foundation.

Seasoned saints say that it appears that the fire of God, regrettably, has been misplaced, diminished, and even extinguished compared to how the fire used to fall back in the day! Even the rush to get to Worship Service has apparently slowed its pace because the flow of God just ain’t what it used to be! The excitement of waking up on Sunday mornings in anticipation and expectation of a phenomenal move of the Holy Spirit at church is slowly fading away. It’s frequently verbalized that pastors/preachers stand in the pulpit and declare that today’s sermon is going to be life changing, but yet there’s little evidence that the Word has really had a transforming result on the hearer of the Word. The lifestyle of those who have attended church cannot be discerned to be any different from the unchurched!

It’s gotten to be so much of a spiritual drought that so many young people don’t even know or have not even experienced a true move of God. There used to be a time where the saints would be so drunk in the Spirit that they had to be carried to their cars after service. The shout would overflow into the parking lot. Where did that go? Have we forsaken the ‘King David dancing out of his clothes’ passion? (2 Samuel 6:14-21) Not that we measure the physical expressions that may accommodate the dynamics of worship, but we could measure the power of that demonstrative move of the Holy Ghost! Where did that go?

The ole folk who have experienced and still desire real moves of God attest that the presence of God is put on a time clock and not given unhindered freedom to move in the church services as the power used to move. Others feel that the saints have garnished a sense of worldly success and accomplishments, unlike days of ole when people didn’t have much, and possibly forgot to remember that it was God that made provision for the abundance of blessings. It is felt that the saints don’t praise God like they used to; it’s not appropriate in representing a sophisticated professional demeanor to be outwardly exuberant in adoration toward God. People remember a time when the saints were not ashamed to shout, dance, and render praise unto the God that brought them over! Now, praise is reduced to uplifted hands with hollow lips! There was a time when the premillennial generation remembers the praises that their grandparents and great-grandparents would resonate from the grocery store, to the kitchen sink, and to the dinner table—never holding back on giving God praise at any time nor any place. The general consensus from the forties and older crowd is that the Church has exchanged her garment of godliness for a form of entertainment. Church "just ain’t what it used to be"!

As one who has grown up in church literally all of my life, I too have great concerns regarding the current status, state, and stance of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ! I often wonder, has the intimacy of fellowship, koinonia (communion) with God and His people, left the building? I often reflect and become unsettled about what indeed has caused the persona of the church to shift! Has the purpose of the church been overshadowed by the age of technology and social media? Has the church become so business structured and so socially postured that we have gotten consumed in marketing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that has reduced the power that existentially emanates from the Holy Word of God? Has the mindset of the churchgoer adapted a stop, shop, and save mentality, i.e., staying at one church to reap its benefits and then moving to the next church when bored of what’s being served at the previous table?

Even in the rising of the megachurch, an assembly that boasts of at least two thousand members, statistically and sadly church attendance is declining. Lakewood Church, pastored by Joel Olsten, that started in 1959 with now forty thousand members, and the Potter’s House with thirty thousand members, pastored by Bishop T. D. Jakes, started in 1959, ministries has excelled in logistical excellence; but has it diminished in power and purpose?

(Most of…the drop can be attributed to a decline in formal church membership among Americans who do have a religious preference. Between 1998 and 2000, an average of 73% of religious Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. Over the past three years, the average has fallen to 60% per Jeffrey M. Jones, U.S. Church Membership)

Have we lost our way in an effort of managing crowd control with the megachurch’s doors that constantly revolve, moving people quickly in and out from one morning worship service to the next morning worship service to appease the people? And in order to be competitive, have the medium-and smaller-size churches adapted the quick worship service format to keep members coming, keeping them from not migrating to the mega setting?

REACHRIGHT, an organization that lists church-related stats, states that 50 percent of Americans belong to a church (a drop in 20 percent since 1999). Only 42 percent of millennials attend church. Generation X declined from 62 percent to 54 percent, and 84 percent of churches are either plateauing or declining. Some of the contributing factors are changes in traditional values and a strong influence of social media access. What about Generation Z?

According to Kelley Shattuck, along with quotes from two other authors, in the article 7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America,

While America’s churches as a whole did not keep up with population growth from 1994 to 2004 (older statistics), the country’s smallest (attendance 1–49) and largest churches (2,000-plus) did. During that period, the smallest churches grew 16.4 percent; the largest grew 21.5 percent, exceeding the national population growth of 12.2 percent. But mid-sized churches (100–299)—the average size of a Protestant church in America is 124—declined 1 percent. What were the reasons for the decline? He says, The best way I can describe it is that a lot of people believe they’re upgrading to first class when they go to a larger church, Olson says. It seems highly likely that some of the people in those mid-sized churches are the ones leaving and going to the larger churches. Stetzer agrees and adds that because today’s large churches emphasize small groups and community, hoping to create a small-church feel, they offer the best of both worlds. There are multiple expectations on mid-sized churches that they can’t meet—programs, dynamic music, quality youth ministries, he says. We’ve created a church consumer culture.

So why are churches on the decline? Why are people leaving the church? Why is it that premillennials have to force themselves to go to church now? Why is the X Generation exiting the need for attending church? Why is it that Generation Y Millennials and Generation Z ground themselves in a theology of God knowing my heart but yet the theology seems void of striving for a lifestyle of holiness?

Why isn’t there the urgency to be in church to experience the power of God? Why is it that we have become programmatic in our worship formats? What happened to the signs and wonders that were a normal experience in worship services? Why are so many sermons focused on wealth and self-improvement rather than boasting living a holy life? Why has the standard of holiness (not the religion) almost disappeared? Why aren’t people getting saved as they used to in the days of the Billy Graham Crusades? There has to be a tangible reason!

Hmmm…maybe it all goes back to the origin of the church—the POWER! The day of Pentecost power! I wonder, I seriously wonder, is it because we, the church, no longer have the POWER that it used to have? Have we displaced the POWER of God for other power? Did we displace the importance of the POWER, that magnetic POWER that caused people to run to the house of God every chance that they could get? Have we lost the real purpose of the church: being the instrument whereby the authentic POWER of God is made manifest, where the glory of God was tangible? Has it become a social club with a religious overtone? Hmmm…

I remember in the decades of the seventies, eighties, and early nineties that people used to church hop all of the time, always looking to go outside of their home church to hear highly anointed preachers, evangelists, choirs, and soloists. Seemingly the tide has changed. Now it seems like people go to concerts to compete against one another. It’s a mindset of who can come up with the most vocal dynamics in preaching and singing. It’s about what choir or group of singers can give the most theatrical presentations. It’s a mindset of who has the best designer attire, mind you, absent of the garment of praise. What happened to church, life-saving, sanctifying, Holy Ghost—outpouring CHURCH?

While my focus and main concern really doesn’t hinge on the megachurch setting, I believe that we should pause and access the current state of the church. What personality trait has the house of God robed herself in? What persona has the church put on where her internal behavior affects her external results, thereby causing her to be a laughingstock in the eyes of the world? What persona has seeped into the holy walls of the church that produces offspring that cannot be distinguished from the offspring of the world? Better still, what has the church taken OFF in its attempt of staging a persona that fits and appeals to the church consumer culture? Have we, in our human efforts to keep up with society or the culture, possibly minimized or taken off the most important component of the holy house of God? Have we pushed aside His POWER for the sake of pulling in numbers? Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer mentioned his insight on White Evangelical Christians: You Ought to Say Something: The church doesn’t look like its picture! OH MY! Hmmm…

Obviously, something is affecting the power that the church once had! Have we let an intruder in the house? Remember, it was the POWER that caused three thousand souls to be added to the church on the day of Pentecost! (Acts 2:41). It was the POWER that caused the early saints to be steadfast in doctrine, fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:42). It was the POWER that caused the early churchgoers to witness signs and wonders wrought by the preaching of the Gospel! (Acts 2:43). It was the POWER that caused the saints to have all things in common! (Acts 2:44). And as the churchgoers saw the wondrous works of God, it was God’s Spirit that moved in response to their PRAISE in appreciation for the POWER that kept souls being added to the church DAILY! (Acts 2:47).

So has the time come for the church at large to pause and assess these questions? Have we, in an effort in trying to accommodate the church consumer culture, minimized the necessity of experiencing the authentic power of God in our churches? Have we become more internally political than spiritual? Have we minimized the necessity of yielding to the presence of God in our corporate worship experiences? Have we minimized the necessity of taking time to linger in the presence of God in our corporate experience? Have we minimized the importance of teaching believers how to practice the presence of God in their lives? Have we minimized the theology of a close and up-front personal relationship with God? In Him we live, move, and have our beings doctrine, is it gone? Have we served fast-food ideologies rather than serving the Bread of Life? Have we minimized the purity and potency of the Word to relate to and win the church consumer culture? Have we lost Jesus in the crowd? (Luke 2:43–45). Has the light dimmed in the tabernacle? Is the candlestick flickering in the church house?

And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see; And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep; That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou callest me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down. And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him. And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth. And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever. And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the LORD. And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision. Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I. And he said, What is the thing that the LORD hath said unto thee? I pray thee hide it not from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me of all the things that he said unto thee. And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the LORD: let him do what seemeth him good. And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. (Sam. 3)

Has the church become Samuel? Have we been in a position like Samuel who ministered DAILY in the service of the Lord but yet so far removed from a spiritual posture that enables us to no longer recognize God’s voice! Has the church, as Samuel, laid down to sleep? Are we asleep in Zion? Have we become at rest in Zion? Have we in the church become so ritualistic, routine, and redundant in the daily functionality of church that we can no longer discern God’s voice as He speaks? Have we deceptively been led away from the power of God by the plot of the enemy? Have we sought outside worldly council, strange and secular council for the church to incorporate business and social concepts to keep up with the culture? Have we sought voices of the secular that mold world and worldly concepts to move the church into contemporary relevance? Has the church GONE OFF COURSE? Have we dismantled God’s power to increase the profit? Hmm…

I believe it is past time for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to say, HERE AM I, speak… WE NEED GOD TO SPEAK! Better still, we need to be in the spiritual posture to HEAR HIM when He DOES! I believe that it is past time for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to have a head-on collision with the supernatural power of God! I call it a SUPERNATURAL SPIRITUAL INTERCOURSE, where we enter HIS courts, the place where His presence is! A place where we, the church, once again enter into a place of divine intimacy with "Him whom my/our soul loveth." That place where the church will so yearn to bask in His glory. There, we will feel the intimacy of His presence. That place where the church and the believers make God once again the sole object of OUR desire! The place that will cause all minds to be focused on God and God ALONE! That place that when the church worships, God speaks from the Holy Place, "I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle" (1 Sam. 3:11).

Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day and I will forsake them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because God is not among us? And I will surely hide my face…in that they are turned to other gods. (Deut. 31:17).

Does this validate the pestilence and unknown diseases in the land? The reality is, God turned His face from US because we turned our face from Him. Has the church then become guilty of seeking His hand and not His face?

(FYI: I’ve interjected this paragraph AFTER I finished writing this book; just before sending it for publishing. I thought it paramount to state this as we happen to be in the greatest pandemic of our lifetime, the coronavirus (COVID-19)! GOD HAS SPOKEN! He, literally, has gotten the attention of the ENTIRE WORLD. EVERYTHING has bowed down at this crisis. But yet it seems like few have been steadfast in 2 Chronicles 7:14: seeking HIS face that HE might HEAL our land. We seemingly get so easily distracted even in the midst of tragedy. I am concerned, with no disrespect, that our Spiritual Leaders may not be absolutely tuned into what God is demanding of us at this time and in this season. Before this pandemic, and still until this very moment, preachers are boasting that after this, they’ll be a great season of wealth! While blessings MIGHT follow after this, we MUST be clear on WHAT that blessing is for! We have been so overly saturated with it’s my time; it’s my season that we are seemingly looped in spiritual rhetoric! Have we not learned yet that maybe God has even SHUT THE CHURCH DOWN because our attention has been on me, me, me and my, my, my that we have OVERLOOKED HIM, HIM, HIM? Let’s hear the conclusion of the whole matter! Beloved, should you experience an increase in material manifestations after this, please be CLEAR that the increase is about the KINGDOM, NOT YOU OR ME! The increase is to sow BACK into the Kingdom to support an END-TIME REVIVAL! The church MUST get back on course! The church MUST get pregnant again to fulfill its pure purpose: to be the House of Prayer for ALL; to lift Jesus that He draws all men unto HIMSELF, not to lift a personality or to present a Sunday morning production! The increase is for the KINGDOM, not the king! I pray that THIS revelation spreads abroad to the House of God and to every Pastor, Shepherd, Evangelist, Minister of Music, Psalmist, and everyone