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Latest IHOP–KC News
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Loren Cunningham is speaking at onething'09 - Free Webstream
The onething'09 conference begins today, here in Kansas City. With over 20,000 people registered to come, this is the largest onething conference we have had yet. Furthermore, we have just recieved news that Loren Cunningham will coming to speak at the onething'09 conference.
Click here to join us for the free, online webcast.
Loren is the founder of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and is recognized by many as the premier statesman and father in the missions movement worldwide. YWAM currently has about 25,000 full-time staff worldwide making it and Campus Crusade for Christ the two largest missions organizations in history. He started YWAM in 1960 and YWAM is celebrating their 50th anniversary throughout 2010, thus his schedule is very full.
However, just last week, Loren was stirred by the Lord to come to the onething conference and has made last minute changes to his schedule to join Mike Bickle and the IHOP–KC leadership team because of the significance of what we believe is going to occur at this conference.
We believe that Loren’s coming to this conference signals something significant in God’s heart. Loren believes that this event could play a key role in preparing the way for what God is going to do in 2010. God is causing a deep partnership of the missions movement with the prayer movement in this hour. Over the past several years, many of the leaders in the prayer movement and the missions movement have joined together in an intentional way to work towards fulfilling the Great Commission. This dynamic synergism between the prayer and missions movements is an exciting development in church history and its significance must not be overlooked.
We encourage you to join with us for this historic moment in person at Bartle Hall in Kansas City with 20,000+ young adults or by webcast via IHOP.org. You can also join us live on GOD TV (DirecTV channel 365).
Help us spread the word, by forwarding this email to friends, family, and church leaders. While 20,000+ people are joining us in person at Bartle Hall in Kansas City, many more can join us online.
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Donations for onething'09
Right now we have more than 21,000 registered to join us in Kansas City, and we are expecting as many as 50,000 to join us via the live webcast. We made the decision years ago that the onething conference would be free, to help remove any barriers for those who want to attend.
This year our cost for the onething conference is roughly $50 for each attendee. Each year, the costs of the onething conferences have been significantly covered thanks to your generous donations.
To help cover the cost of the onething conference click here.
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Derek Loux Memorial Service
On Wednesday morning December 23, 2009, Derek R. Loux (37), a husband, father, musician, and justice advocate, went home to be with the Lord after a fatal car accident in Nebraska. Derek, a faithful servant of the Lord, was husband to Renee Loux for 17 years and father to ten children, several with special needs.
The Loux’s two biological daughters, Sophia (12) and Michaela (9), were joined by five adopted daughters from the Marshall Islands: Telma (19), Teyolla and Keyolla (twins, 18), Leeann (15), and Sana (8). Of their three adopted sons from the Ukraine, Sasha (7), Ethan (6), and Silas (3), two have Down syndrome and one has spina bifida.
Late in the evening on December 22, after attending a training seminar on how to help children who are rescued out of the sex slave industry, Derek and his friend, Jonathan Oliver, began their return drive from Colorado. They hit a patch of black ice as they drove through a Nebraska snowstorm, causing their vehicle to spin out of control and flip several times. Jonathan and a witness of the accident immediately performed CPR on Derek while waiting for the ambulance. Derek regained a pulse, but his heart rate dropped as they were transporting him to a hospital and he passed away.
Derek was part of the senior leadership team of the International House of Prayer of Kansas City (IHOP–KC) and served many areas of the missions base, including helping to pioneer Forerunner Music Academy. Before joining IHOP–KC, he served as the director of Indianapolis House of Prayer for four years. As a professional musician, singer, and songwriter, Derek recorded several CDs including Paper Religion and Fragrant Burning. He was also a worship leader and a frequent conference speaker.
Derek’s life passion was adopting and restoring orphans, particularly those with special needs. He pioneered the vision of the Orphan Justice Center (OJC), a haven of restoration for rescued orphans.
Kirk Bennett, director of IHOP–KC's justice department, worked with Derek and the Orphan Justice Center. “Derek was a joyful husband and father. He is one of the most amazing champions of justice, adoption, and life that I have ever worked with. He was intensely and personally involved in bringing justice to many; he demonstrated the value of life to people and individuals so that they could experience their own value and freedom," said Kirk.
Derek and Renee’s firstborn son, Josiah, a special needs child, passed away when he was 2½ years old. Josiah’s life and death opened the Loux’s eyes to a whole new world of love for children with special needs. As a result, one of their dreams has been to buy approximately 45 acres on Blue Ridge Boulevard, Grandview, to build a “mansion of mercy” and therapy center for special needs children and the staff caring for them. Renee and the Loux children plan to continue their current efforts to help children, fulfilling this dream even in Derek’s death. For more detailed information about the Josiah project and how you can partner with the Loux family, go to www.josiahfund.org.
Mike and Diane Bickle and the entire IHOP–KC staff will greatly miss Derek Loux, his excellent leadership, and his faithful friendship. Speaking of Derek, Mike Bickle says: “He was a faithful man who loved God and cared about people. He led worship teams and helped start Forerunner Music Academy and the Orphan Justice Center. He was an integral part of our leadership and he will be greatly missed as a dear friend.”
Derek’s memorial service will be held on Saturday, January 2, 2010 at the IHOP–KC Forerunner School of Ministry building located at 12444 Grandview Road, Grandview, Missouri. Service times are as follows: viewing, 10:00am–noon; memorial service (available via live webstream on IHOP.org), 2:00pm–4:30pm.
If you would like to assist the family at this tragic time, you may do so by mailing your non-deductible financial gift to:
Renee Loux
P.O. Box 47
Grandview MO 64030
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Thoughts on the Incarnation
This time of year inevitably evokes thoughts of Christ. All over the earth, Christmas is a time to dwell on the mystery of the incarnation. Believers and unbelievers alike will most likely find themselves pondering the life of Jesus at some point or another during these yearly festivities and rightly so, for it is in memory of His coming, His incarnation, and His birthday that people stop to dwell on this mystery—Immanuel, God with us.
But I always wonder if we truly grasp the implications of the incarnate Lord. To stop and think, to ponder, to consider or reflect is not sufficient to truly grasp the weight of God’s redemptive plan for all of mankind. Eternity’s cumulative expression is voiced now in one little helpless baby boy. This is a miracle, not merely a historic happenstance to be remembered once a year at Christmas. The reality of this miracle is as powerful now as it was to those shepherds and wise men on that evening in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago.
Imagine with me for a moment what this means. A baby born to one of the weakest clans in Israel, to a poor family of the least tribe, said to be conceived by the Holy Spirit, born in an oppressed nation during an era of foreign domination at the hand of pagan Rome, considered by His peers as an illegitimate child, He was forced to flee with his humble family because a murderous tyrant was seeking His head. Fast forward through His life as a young child and teen. As a young man He had no reputation, no prospects, no wealth, and considered Himself homeless for He had nowhere to lay His head. He was ostracized by the religious leaders of His day in a country where religious status meant everything, and He came claiming Messiahship—as the savior of Israel—only to be scorned, rejected, mocked, and eventually crucified as a trade-in for a murderer; all of this simply because He was being obedient to His Father.
The company He held was with the most despised class of people; namely, prostitutes, the sick, tax collectors, sinners, and vagabonds. All the hopes of Israel, from her first prophet all through her turbulent history, spoke of this man. All Israel’s expectations for a king for thousands of years and here Jesus is, claiming to be that man. One begins to wonder that had we been His contemporaries, would we have clung to our confession of Him as we do now, post cross and resurrection.
Do we really understand what He did? The cross was not a brief moment in time for Him. The cross was His entire life, from humble birth up until His extravagant passion. At every moment in His life He was driven by one thing—the will of His Father and joyfully submitting His life as a living sacrifice.
Christmas is not just a celebration of His birth, but of the nature, character, humility, and culmination of that birth and the life of exemplary love that followed it. As we celebrate Him this Christmas season, let us think and pray over what His incarnation means. And we will likewise declare with the apostle Paul, “Let this mind be in you which also was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:5-11).
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Nathan David Wood, 12/20/2009 |
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