by Michael Joseph

(Chapter 1)

    A few years ago I had a dream. I don’t remember exactly when it was, just how much of an impact it made on me. I believe that God gave me this dream so I could boldly speak this truth.

    The Dream took place at the church where I grew up. It was a  very old church in a very country setting. In the dream I was there to perform. I was sitting (facing the stage) in the back right section. I was sitting there with another friend of mine Melanie. She was there to perform also. On stage at that time was another friend of mine, John.

    The Dream starts with John on stage with his acoustic guitar and Melanie and I sitting in the back waiting our turn. As John performs, Melanie and I noticed that in the section where we were sitting, all of the children of the people who were up front listening to John, were running around unsupervised. They were running up and down the isles, playing in the pews. No one was telling them to behave or to quiet down. Melanie noticed a small girl lying on the pew behind us. This young girl was lying there with out a care in the world.  Melanie turned to the girl and asked her, "Little girl, where are your parents?" The little girl didn’t skip a beat and replied back, "O there up front, PLAYING CHURCH."

    How profound … how true … how blinded we were up to that point, to the very reality we were part of. Has a generation been lost, do to people playing church? Has more than one generation been lost? How do we teach them to see past the people playing church to a real God, who really cares for each and every one of those children, just the way they are?

    It was once said, "What one generation silently tolerates, the next generation condones and by the third generation the sin has become openly acceptable behavior. This is generational sin."

THE LAZARUS GENERATION
    The United States is a home to a wretched generation of violent orphans. The jaded, hollow look in their eyes is a testament of national shame. Family ties are dead...no father, no structure, no order and no limits.

    These orphans start out as children subjected to a lethal mixture of shattered families, a cynical culture, and a ready access to guns. Television violence is their only lasting parent. Young people uniquely bear the brunt of our nations mistakes. Has Satan ever brutalized a generation more?

One night God told me something that altered my life: "The Lazarus Generation is coming!"

    To help me understand, He led me to Ezekiel 37 where Ezekiel was whisked away to a bluff overlooking a valley of bones. As Ezekiel prophesied, a fierce rattling began. Muscle, sinew, and skin formed, and suddenly there stood a mighty army.

    The Bible does not say "Stay ye there for between the walls of this building and they will come unto your potluck dinner" … it says, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.  (NIV) Mark 16:15

    "Prophesy!" is still God's command to those who can see the devastation. Go from your comfortable churches to the hellholes. Prophesy to the crack addict, the teenage prostitute the young Satanist's and gang leaders. God will mine treasures out of darkness, and out of their graves the Lazarus Generation will rise to lead the most stunning return to righteousness America has ever seen!

    These youth are being raised up to help us. They are the keys to our own future. A new breed of young believers is being unleashed on an unwary world. They are fearless because they have tasted death. They are abandoned to God, knowing that they are living on borrowed time. Their infectious faith will touch millions. It is going to be a delight to watch the secular media baffled and powerless before these youth, who shatter every Christian stereotype.

    Just like the "Balaams" of old, many Christian leaders, are "wolves in sheep's clothing" They have turned the church into a den of thieves and made 'counterfeit Christianity' the most destructive force in humanity's history. NO MORE COOKIE CUTTER CHRISTIANITY !!!

    The Lazarus Generation will be raised up too fast to change clothes. Their grave garb will be worn in the church, and we can't be the fashion police. They must encounter excitement and love in our churches, not a dress code. We will either embrace this youth awakening and be indescribably blessed, or it will run us over like a locomotive.

    I asked a friend of mine about a trip her and her husband took. They went to Argentina where there was a great revival going on. I asked them what would it look like if it happened here where I live. She said, have you ever seen a stream in the winter time where the top is frozen and the water underneath the ice is moving fast? I said yes. She said that is what it look like.

    The church in Argentina does not recognize the movement going on, but the people there meet every Sunday in the streets by the thousands. They know if they are having a bad day, and they want prayer, all they have to do is to go down to the street corner and wait, because with in a few minutes someone walking by will stop and pray with them. It will be in full swing before the "church" even see it. Even then some Churches will say that this movement is not of God, because it does not fit into their mold of Christianity.

To embrace the Lazarus Generation we must do the following:

1. Devote all of our empty church seats to unwanted youth.

    We must decide not to heed church donors who complain how loud the music is. Instead, let's listen to our on fire youth pastors. Let's open ourselves to the Holy Spirits radical strategies for over running our sanctuary with youth!

Hang a sign on your heart that says, "The Lazarus Generation welcome here."

2. Prophesy, "Lazarus Generation come forth."

    How do you talk to a dead person? How do you call those in the Lazarus Generation out of their graves?
Go to the tombs. These youth are not hard to find; thousands of young people homeless or trapped in prostitution. Call them what Jesus calls them. He shouted, "Lazarus!" We are not to call them junkies, gays, hookers or criminals! They are the beloved, destined for resurrection. They are kidnapped royalty. Our preaching must be saturated with that revelation.

    Let the words from the nation's pulpits be purified of attacks on their appearance and behavior, ignoring their costumes and call them by names that bring resurrection: "accepted in the beloved," "royal priesthood," "chosen generation." We are not to add to the weight of their sin with our words....we are to seize them with the thrill of their own destiny.

Command them to come forth. Our youth need both prophesy and a command.
Jesus was not suggesting to Lazarus. He was commanding it!

    Teens do not respect murky speeches or psycho-babble. They want absolutes. They want integrity. They want clear direction. If I put down their music, clothes, and actions, teens instantly check out. But if I thunder like an angry but loving father who commands them to stop dying and scolds them for refusing to embrace the life that they were born to live, they break free and invade the kingdom en masse.

3. Loose them and let them go.

    Jesus told the people to unwrap Lazarus. The Lazarus Generation must clean up, put and end to their drugs and sexual sin, and renounce the works of darkness. Nevertheless, we must not rewrap them in church grave clothes. We must not let the "Christian Clone Factory" get their hands on them and try to make them short haired, card carrying Republicans!

Luke 5:37-38

37. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.  No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.

You can not pour this generation into old church style. There is a difference between "Church doctrine" and "Church Style"

   We must not dull the edge of their uniqueness. We must give them the Word and the Spirit, not sterile styles. Our nation cannot hear us! The church is dismissed as a collection of escapists and relics, rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. But the Lazarus Generation knows the language of the lost. Our youth are connected to the lost souls from which we are now isolated. They will be released as the church and the Lazarus Generation. A wall of fire will reach the heavens and race outward to burn up a nation's sin, reducing demonic strongholds to ashes!