Leader Focus: Lyle Penisula

I thought it would be a great idea to look at some of the Christian leaders in our nation. Lyle and Debbie Penisula are the Senior Ministers @ Hawkes Bay Equipper's Church in NZ. Lyle is a passionate communicator and a gifted artist (the painting to the right should leave you in no doubt). He has a heart for seeing revival in NZ, and firmly believes that it will start with our generation's youth. Anyway, here's a self-introduction, and a post from Lyle's Bebo which illustrates his vision for revival.

Ray

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FYI: I AM a husband (Debbie's man), a father (4 boys & 1 girl), a son, a brother (2 Sisters), an uncle. And I abolutely love my aiga (family) to bits... we serve Jesus and His cause.

I AM an Artist... inspired, influenced, motivated, and gifted by the greatest artist of all the one and only Creator of the Universe, God Himself... by the way God and I are friends.

I AM a preacher called by God commissioned by Jesus and endorsed by the Holy Spirit... Yeah, I AM blessed.

I AM Samoan, I AM Palagi (Scottish) I AM a son of Aoteroa, New Zealand... However my citizenship is not of this world. I AM a child of God an ambassador of Jesus Christ... I AM on a mission from God!!!...

How about you? have you found your purpose in life? True purpose can only be found in the great I AM Jesus Christ! Common I dare you to ask Him right NOW to reveal Himself to you. What have you got to lose?

Youth Revival

The vision? The vision is JESUS ? obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus. The vision is an army of young people. You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism. They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And the army is disciplined. Young people who beat their bodies into submission. Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter! Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside. On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.

Don't you hear them coming? Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.

My/Your prayer of faith invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself - the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.