I have recently read a statistic quoted by another pastor – more than 50% of Christians do not attend or belong to a church fellowship.  This alarmed me, but I will lie if I said I was surprised.

Therefore I want to share the following dream The Lord gave me in a dream, shortly after I returned from the Philippines.  In the dream I was at a camp and I was watching some people doing their dishes at a set of basins mounted on the wall, outside the kitchen.  Each person would only do their own, ignoring everything that did not belong to them personally.  They had an attitude of “every man for himself”.  It was then that I noticed a small trench in front of the kitchen door.  This trench was filled with the largest tarantulas I have ever seen…it was chilling, to say the least.  What was worse was that one had made its way up my leg and was now meandering up my arm.  I swiftly brushed that spider off my arm!

Then the scene changed.  It was time to go home, and people started filing onto a bus.  Some were very reluctant to get on that bus and had to be rounded up with a warning that they would be left behind if they did not get on the bus promptly. 

This dream is rich in symbolism and I feel called to share this more widely than what I usually do with prophetic dreams.  I was immediately reminded of 2 Corinthians 5:1 where Paul says: “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.”  In these bodies we are merely camping out and we have an eternal home waiting for us, if we have received Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour. 

The kitchen speaks of the heart, intention, motive, plans, passion and ambition.  It’s the place where we “cook up” ideas and it is at the entrance of the heart, our innermost part, where a ditch is, filled with tarantulas.  The symbolism of tarantulas is evil, deception, false doctrine and as tarantulas are carnivorous spiders who hunt by building a silk-lined trap to ambush, it speaks of a trap in front of our hearts, a place of deception and temptation to fall for a lie.

The bus speaks of the church, the body of believers and in this case, is the vehicle for getting the “campers” safely home. 

So let me put it all together now.  We are but sojourners, camping out in tents and we are making our way home.  In the process we are in danger of deception.  In Matthew 24:24 we read “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”  If being saved protected us from deception there would be no need of this warning, would there?

The Lord is calling us to guard our hearts, to stay filled with Holy Spirit and we have to take responsibility for each other.  We cannot have the attitude of king Hezekiah (see 2 Kings 20 for the full story) that destruction for someone else is OK as long as we have peace in our own day.  We should take responsibility for doing our own “dishes” but we cannot neglect correcting and/or training each other for the sake of peace.

Not only this, but the way to get home safely is to get (and stay) on the bus.  For me this was hard to hear as I, like probably 90% of Christians who had been saved more than a week, can testify to church sometimes feeling very unsafe.  Being part of a family puts you in danger of getting hurt, abused, ill-treated and judged.  I am no different and as we are all broken people, coming to the Father’s house to be healed and purified (a messy business) I don’t know why we are so surprised when it happens.  The local church is and will always be the Father’s answer to the world’s problems.  We have been created for relationship and we operate far better in community.  It is the safeguard against deception and being on the “bus” is what will keep us safe and bring us home.  Being united with the body of Christ, working together in a single-minded purpose of fulfilling Jesus’ commission is what will command the blessing.

I have seen my fair share of power abuse, of gossiping and every other objection I hear from believers who have had their fingers burned.  I sympathize, but the fact remains that it grieves Father when we, His children, are not united in Christ.  May I implore you again, my hurt brother and sister, to try again, to find a fellowship that you can belong to where you go with the attitude of a servant, not for what you can get, but for what you can add.  You are needed!  The Lord bless you with His shalom.