Carl John Fechner
Carl is the Founder of Growing Deep and Strong Series, Founder of Strategy Consultants, A follower of Jesus Christ. His life passion is to be a catalyst and facilitator in developing people who will become leaders and disciplers of others.

Are you ready for revival?

revival

  • Are you and your Church ready for a harvest of souls?
  • Have you got in place the mechanisms to disciple large numbers of people?

It was during a time in my life when I was co-leading Intercessors for Melbourne that God spoke to me and asked, “What does revival look like”? From study, I knew that during the Welsh Revival some 80% of the population was touched by God and professed to be Christians, yet 10 years later there was very little evidence remaining of the mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit, when I read this, I was saddened to see the harvest lost back to the Kingdom of Darkness and concerned that history did not repeat itself.

What Does Revival Look Like?

revival We are told continually by respected Prophets that what is coming is larger than any previous outpouring of God’s Spirit, and it is on a global level not just restricted to one locality.

Well I can think big, but, on a global level? So to help it make sense and comprehensible to my mind, I asked myself this question. “What would revival look like in my city, Melbourne Australia?”
So, I decided to crunch some numbers, first, I thought, what if only 20% of Melbourne was touched by The Spirit of God? How many people would that be? The numbers are staggering!
Are you and your church are ready for revival

Thousands of Converts

The June 2019 Census, reveals Melbourne has a total population of 4,850.000
It is made up of a total 31 municipalities of various size populations
but, for the sake of the exercise, let’s just average out the numbers
4,077,036 divided by 31 = 156,452 people per municipality
Divide that by 20% = 31,290 people
That’s 31,290 new converts in your municipality if you live in Melbourne!

Now, I know I have oversimplified this because this includes every man, woman and child. BUT, do you get the picture? God is saying very clearly to His people, “the coming outpouring of My Spirit is larger than any previous outpouring of My Spirit!”


Are you ready to catch the harvest?
Can you and your Church contain the harvest?

Fishing Trawler Vision

God gave me another vision, that I want to share with you

One time in recent years during worship, God showed me a vision of a fishing trawler and I was standing with others (deck hands) on the rear deck, looking at a huge fresh catch of fish swinging in the air in a large fishing trawlers net, the net was attached to the trawlers crane that lifts the net and catch into the trawler, I could see in the vision that the fish in the net were fat, healthy, freshly caught and prime for harvest, the catch of fish was massive and would be a fisherman’s dream. Water was still dripping from the net and the odd small fish was slipping through the net mesh and falling on the deck.

Next, I saw in the vision, a rope attached to the bottom of the net and to my left someone was hanging onto the other end of the rope. As I looked back at the huge catch of fish swinging in the air, I realised the rope was attached to a section of the net, that when tugged upon, it opened the bottom of the net and all the fish would spill onto the deck and it would then be responsibility of the deck hands to gut and clean the fish as quickly as possible, otherwise the fish would spoil and be lost. It was a matter of “all hands on deck!”

Vision Revelation

As I pondered on the vision, the interpretation became apparent, the revelation of the vision was this, the trawler was the Harvester that harvests souls, the catch was the harvest, the Man holding the rope was Jesus and the “deck hands” are us, the Christian Community.

And I got the sense that the Man (Jesus) holding the rope was waiting for us to get prepared for the Harvest, and yes the odd small fish slipping through the net is like the current situation where the odd person is being saved (harvested) and discipled (cleaned and prepared ready for use).

As I watched and interpreted the vision, a quiet discontent, desperation and resolve rose in my heart, we must not lose the harvest that the Lord is about to give us. I began to ponder, seek God and ask these questions;

  • “Lord, what can I do to prepare for this coming harvest?’
  • What can I do to prevent a loss of the harvest?
  • Is the Christian community prepared?
  • Are we ready for the harvest?
  • Can the Christian Community in its present state reap the harvest
  • Does it have the mechanisms in place to disciple the coming harvest?”

A strong resolve was rising in my heart.

heart After much searching, I found the Cleansing Streams 20 week course and one evening I mentioned in our home group and immediately 18 people wanted to do the course with us.
To cut a long story short, we completed the 20 week program, had the ministry weekend and saw the lives of 18 people transformed.

God spoke to us and told us to bring the ministry to the Church in Australia. It was amazing times, the miracles, the provision of God for the trip to USA, the printing, the connections we made, the growth etc. and from 1998 to December 2000 we saw some 150 churches get involved and approximately 3-4000 people in Australia and New Zealand go through the course.

But, as good as it was, I could see that people needed more, that we caught the Christian where they were at in their walk with God, it was based on an assumption that they already had some knowledge of God and his Word, and at the conclusion of the 20 weeks, the small groups and relationships that had developed were disbanded, plus some needed further ministry, yet we had no further input or influence, so, once again I started talking with God. Well, sometimes God answers in very unexpected ways.

God answered my prayer in 2000 with two very unexpected events, first, in August 2000 through a prophetic word which at the time I did not fully understand, and second, in December 2000, we resigned from the ministry. We loved the ministry of Cleansing Streams, but God had a bigger plan.

Prophesy predicting our future

I have added extracts from the prophetic word so that you understand how the next phase came to pass. The word was this;

“I saw you standing with a book in your hand and the pages were blank, And I saw the Lord writing the vision He was going to put in your heart and as the vision was written down the Lord spoke to me about Habakkuk and He said, “I will give this man a vision that he will write down and when he writes the vision down there will come a time again for him to run with the vision and when he runs with the vision many will herald it, many will hear the cry of this man’s heart and the vision that’s inside him and it will cause the next generation to erupt. It will cause the next generation to say I want stand with this father in the faith.”

And I felt like the Lord said to me I saw a picture of an old vision in the book and the Lord said, “I have taken the old out and I’ve blanked the pages and now I am going to rewrite in the book a new vision and that new vision is going to catch the hearts and it’s better than the old one, it’s a whole new one, it’s not a renewal job it’s a brand new one with a whole lot more details than you could imagine.” The Lord said, “at times you will be a prophetic voice to some that will come that are covered in leprosy and you will tell them to dip in this river and they will be healed like Elijah said to Namun.” I felt like the Lord said, “the next stage of the vision carries with it a whole new dynamic of power and freedom for marriages and families and for the next generation.”

Little did the prophet know that already in my heart, I knew we needed more than just the Cleansing Stream Ministry course to catch and hold the harvest, but my plan was different to God’s plan.


In 2001 two significant events took place, one is that we did a year in Ministry Training College and the vision for a complete discipleship package continued to grow within me and second, I met a very gifted theologian, our friendship began to grow and I began sharing the vision I had about a complete discipleship course for brand new Christians, who like us, came from an unchurched background and had no or very limited knowledge of God and his Word.

At the end of 2001, my wife and I believed that God was asking me to write a complete discipleship package for new and maturing Christians. After much prayer and discussions, I accepted the call thinking that it may take about six months, not realising that it would take six years and collectively some 35,000 hours. I think if God had told us six years, I may not have accepted the call.

Growing Deep and Strong is born

In early 2002, I began to formulate and write a discipleship/mentoring program for new Christians.
And the program is this; it is a complete step by step off-the-shelf 12 months Bible Study Mentoring Program, called the Growing Deep and Strong® Series, and it consists of 4 nine week modules and two encounter weekends, it’s simple to use, easy to understand and multiplies small groups organically, the program takes a person from a pagan background to a Small Group Christian Leader in 12 months or less.

We have seen many lives absolutely changed and transformed.
I now feel ready to “catch and clean” the harvest, that I can say to The Lord, “I am ready Jesus, I have done what you asked us to do, we are ready to catch the harvest, we have in place a mechanism for the Christian to not only clean the catch, but also raise up others to do the same.”

Discipling the Harvest

Now, you may want to take our complete-off-the-shelf 12 months discipleship program, or you may want more information on the Growing Deep and Strong® Series, simply go to our web site and you will find a complete description of our 12 months mentoring/discipleship program www.growingdeepandstrong.com
You will find testimonies, in-depth descriptions, instructions on how to run our program and shopping cart.

Are you and your church ready for revival, my prayer is that His church is ready to catch the greatest harvest in history, that we do not lose the harvest to the Kingdom of Darkness, that history does not repeat itself.
God bless and thanks for taking the time to read my story.
Sincerely
Carl John Fechner


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