The Mystery and The Fullness

Part 1 of 2

Further details...

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Previous interviewees:

Farrell Fisher; Cheryl McGrath; Joanie Lynch; Linda Brown; Jennifer Abel

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Featured Submissions

Hannah Hales

Previous Winning Submissions:

Helen Cooley, Naomi Laine, Judith Phillips

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Links and Affiliates

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Birth-themed Resources

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Featured Interviews

Three times a year, our team conducts a short interview with a Christian author, musician, or artist. Our purpose is to present the profound nature of our relationship with the Godhead - as Pregnant Father, Husband-Son, and Holy Spirit. If you are, or know of any budding talents who revel in God's birthing intimacy, unleashing creativity and vision, please provide us with names so that we may contact them. We especially seek little-known people, young or old, with the heart of the shepherd boy, David. We believe that they are hidden-in-training for great feats!

On this series of pages we also encourage you to e-mail comments as a means of feedback for our artists. This interaction provides an important sense of how their emerging ministry is being publicly received. Our featured artists monitor our site on a regular basis. Many will also have their own website or web pages for you to access, or a newbornBooks e-mail address, and they are more than willing to answer your questions. We will supply contact information at the end of each interview.

Previous Ministers

Linda's heart was set on fire for the Lord as a young woman when she became part of the Jesus Movement. Today, she watches the times and waits on the seasons along with her husband, Lenny. They carry not only vision but a specific calling for the End-Times. As well as being a Vineyard pastor, Linda moves in prophecy through word and worship dance. Recently, she began using her creative talents through a blog, Off the Loom, where she is weaving through the Psalms. She has created such wonderful gifts as miracle scarves and prayer shawls for people, as the Lord leads, praying over every stitch as she goes. Some of her high quality work is pictured below.

Gemma: Who is Jesus to you, Linda?

Linda:

I relate to Jesus most as the Bridegroom. Maybe it's my romantic nature that places an emphasis on Jesus in that role. Some of my favorite scriptures are the ones that reference Jesus as the Bridegroom. Isaiah 62:5 - "Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride." Here, I can visualize Jesus pleased and rejoicing over me, passionately in love with me as a bridegroom in love with his new bride. I see Jesus as caring, patient, and compassionate. I know I am the "apple of His eye, the object of His affection" (Deuteronomy 32:10). I sense an intimate connection with Jesus when I worship Him through dance, too. Through dance I can offer my body as a sacrifice of praise, a sacrifice He accepts and is pleased with, as it mentions in Romans 12:1. In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell, a Scottish Christian runner explained in a sermon after a race that when he ran "he felt God's pleasure." It is very much the same for me when I dance before Him. I have a sense of His presence, His pleasure, and an awareness of Him moving through me - and at times even dancing with me, holding me close.

Gemma: Can you give an example when you were aware of God birthing something in your life?

Linda:

In February of 1994, the Lord began to reveal to Lenny and I that He was calling us back to Park City, Utah. We were living in Burbank pastoring the Vineyard and we were involved in a glorious outpouring at the time. As we were enjoying the fruit of prayers prayed for eight years, believing for this outpouring, God began to tug on our hearts with a call to return to the church we pastored in the early to mid 80s. I remember asking, "You want us to leave now?" As we began to pray and search out God's will concerning this call, prophetic words were given to us. It took 9 months from the time we started praying to receive a specific confirmation that we were definitely supposed to return to Park City. I always thought that was interesting timing because as we all know, the gestation period for the birth of a full-term baby is 9 months. There was another time around 18 years ago when I was aware of God birthing something new in my life. It was when He blessed me with the gift of intercession. Dave Davis, a minister with a prophetic anointing, prayed for me to receive an impartation of this gift. The Lord was faithful to birth intercession into my life, and through Him I've been exercising this wonderful gift.

Tessa: How do you see or what do you see the Father, Son and Holy Spirit producing in the Bride at this time in history?

Linda:

At this time in history, I see the Father, Son and Holy Spirit preparing His Bride to see His Glory. I believe God is cleansing our hearts and bringing us through the refining fire in these last days. He is requiring a deeper level of faith and trust through trials and the testing of our faith. This will produce the fruit of righteousness and holiness in our lives (1 Peter 1:6,7 and 2 Peter 1:5-8). God is also maturing us to the profound commitment of loving Him and others. He is calling His Bride to deeper places of intimacy and restoring passion, calling us out of lethargy. This is the time to draw near to God (James 4:8). He is going to restore the joy of our salvation (Psalm 51:12). I also see God encouraging us to press on to receive our inheritance and not grow weary. Now is the time to become intentional in our faith, to receive what God has promised. We will reap the reward if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9).