In Philadelphia.

 

My dear friends,
 

In Philadelphia, during the Institute of Basic Life Principles speeches by Bill Gothard in 1973 I was sitting in the farthest balcony of a large Stadium.

 

During a short break I decided to make an Airplane out of one page from the red folder they provided and launch it toward the pulpit.

 

My well-built little paper plane took off like a real airplane in a straight and steady speed directly to its objective. Half way to the pulpit everyone in the stadium stopped talking as they notice my little UFO that like a missile was approaching the pulpit.

 

After traveling from the farthest part of the stadium from up in the balcony it must have traveled a good 100 yards until about six feet from the pulpit a tall young man caught without any violence to my little paper plane.

 

The whole stadium attendees unanimously broke in the loud and thunderous cheer and applauded at “THEIR” PAPER AIRPLANE FOR MAKING IT ALL THE WAY TO THE PULPIT.

 

I said “THEIR” paper plane because somewhere along the way everyone adopted the little plane as “HIS OR HER” little airplane. I knew almost everyone could make a paper plane. They probably were saying to themselves, “I could have made that little plane.” But they did not make that plane.

 

I did it and I launch it! That day I had double honor. The personal satisfaction of reaching my target and the recognition and happy cheer of everyone in the stadium. Even though among so many thousands of young people no one could see me as the author of the paper plane apart from those around me like my girlfriend Ruthie and my friends of our carpool who sat next to me.

 

Much in the same way the great forest fires in Southern California are started by a cigarette butt on an otherwise dry bone brush, No one knows who starts the fire but the arsonist and his partner or the smoker and his wife who saw him flicking off the cigarette butt from the window of their car into the dry brush.

 

The point of these illustrations is that a seemingly insignificant deeds can have a great and massive impact around those who dare to cause them.

 

Ever-since I started to talk, to think and to remember, I have been committed to change the world so that my favorite part of the Lord’s Prayer is “Your kingdom come.”

 

I cannot shake it off.

I cannot get rid of it.

It is in my guts.

It is in my bloodstreams.

It’s in my bone and marrow.

 

I dream about it at night and work from the crack of down to late at night and on it even after retirement. I relentlessly look for a revolutionary prayer partner with whom to agree and do the impossible,  to believe the incredible and to see the invisible together in the name of Jesus. I cannot find such a partner. If I find one, like in the case of my wife, my daughter Keila, and my mentor Doug and Pankico, they all died on me.

 

I have become “radioactive” and difficult to get along with due to my eschatological urgency and my views on Prayer, Faith, and the will of God as stated in scripture as prerequisites of agreement to pray. 

 

I evaluate people, movements, pastors, leaders, not on the basis of the sizes of their congregation or their building, but in the basis of their small obedience on their core group of men where they like Jesus have their Peter, James and John.

 

I still believe with all my heart that if a man does not have at least one friend like Jesus had in John, he cannot have three like Peter, James and John. If he does not have three friends, he surely does not have twelve and let alone 120 or more.

 

I evaluate books, ideas, doctrines, and religions and people in general in the measure of how much they lift the name of Jesus. Not “the messiah”, not “Christ” not “Lord,” not “the savior”, not “the lamb of God”, not even “intercessor,” which all are fine as titles of God the Son but his name is “Jesus.”

 

There is only one name given to men under heaven, in whose name every knee will bow down, and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.

Jesus himself said, “If I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself.”

 

When we simply lift the name of Jesus the crucified it is when the light of the gospel attracts ALL men as real bright lights attract ALL kinds of bugs outside the house in the summer nights. Some bugs to their certain end as little blue smokes of their burned bodies while others flight around the light and are found around the powerful light ball even in the morning.

 

Jesus is the stone on which many stumble and are broken and the same Jesus is the rock that smashes on who he falls. In Jesus God has set before men the life and death saying, “Choose ye this day whom to follow.”

 

Remember that no Prayer great or small will reach the ears of God if such a prayer is not lifted up in the name of Jesus and the approval of the Holy Spirit who is the person in charge of the use and misuse of the name of Jesus and prayer.

 

Oh, if we can only be like a little child who believes all things without malice and take Jesus at his word to change the world by launching ourselves like a little paper plane to encourage a watching world aching to cheer once again to the “David’s” on duty. (My best prayer partners are little children and toddlers.)

 

The “Tres Amigos” Peter, James and John, like Daniel and his “Tres Amigos” or like the three insignificant little drops of water traveling from the Andes Mountains of Peru all the way to the Atlantic Ocean like you and your three friends, is the way Jesus wants us to travel if we want to change the world.

 

To small obedience we have been called but small obedience should be coated in “Faith and Prayer” as one and the same thing and launch our little paper plane and let the winds of the breath of the Holy Spirit guide the rest of the voyage all the way to World change or until his kingdom comes.

 

Some preachers are in need to repent from making out of the pulpit that the only place where world change will occur. We need to wake up the sleeping giant of the pew and make out of world change the business of every individual by equipping them and making them responsible of small obedience such as having three friends like Peter, James and John in order to agree together as one in Jesus and pray until they learn what prayer really is and dare to do the greater things that Jesus promised to those who take Jesus at his word.

 

We are talking about a chain reaction or a Domino effect from Grandparents to parents and children and grandchildren or just your carpool member united in Jesus and rocking the World by praying together “Your Kingdom come”. 

 

This was a worker of the “Boing plant” of Jesus on duty.

 

Gerry Gutierrez.

 

PS. Our pictures in our twenties in Philadelphia.