Molten Church

A prophetic Vision

In January 2012, I was invited to a Prophetic round table by some friends of mine - Rob and Aliss Cresswell.

I told them I was happy to come but that I would have to leave before lunch. Somehow, and unbeknownst to me, that message morphed into “I’m coming with a prophetic word that I need to deliver before lunch.”

Sure enough, just before lunch, the moderator announced to us all that a brother had a very important word for us to consider before lunch. We were all looking round to see who this brother was when he came over to me and gave me the microphone.

In the moment that he passed me the mic I saw a very clear detailed vision, which I went on to share with the group.

This is what I saw:

I was in a fairly high place looking at what I knew was a model of a city. 

I could see it had a skyline and all the various different buildings you would expect in any city. Dominant on the skyline was a beautiful church with a traditional steeple and all the carvings and details that go with it.

As I watched, the church started to melt. It turned out to be made of wax, which had been very carefully sculpted and painted. 

As it melted it sank down and, as it did so, I was lifted up so that I could see over the other buildings on the skyline to what was happening to the church.

Obviously, heat was being applied to the church, causing it to melt into a pool of molten wax. 

Initially I thought this was some sort of rebuke to the church. As if the Lord might be saying that we are losing our place; that we’re not going to be visible on the skyline and that He was removing our influence. But I actually felt the Lord‘s significant pleasure at what was happening. So it clearly wasn’t a rebuke.

As the wax became molten, it began to flow – driven by gravity and the contours of the landscape. Where, previously, there had been lots of straight edges and evidence of man’s intentions, designs and strategies, there was not a straight line to be seen anywhere – just organic shapes.

The molten wax ran downhill and pooled wherever there was a dip in the landscape. Eventually there were no more slopes and the wax settled and presumably started to cool down and go solid again.

As I pondered this vision and what it meant, I had the sense that God’s intentions for us as the church are not the same thing as they have formerly been. 

We are no longer meant to predominantly be a beacon on the skyline. That’s not important in this next phase. There’s no hierarchy in what’s happening. So building up edifices in the church, building up formal structures and layers is no longer relevant.

Importantly, in the picture, wherever the wax of the church ended up – molten or solid - its molecular structure remained exactly the same. However, where it ended up was actually decided by the land itself. 

So it’s about us – the church - going wherever the need takes us.

Wherever we end up flowing and stopping, that’s the right place for us to be. It’s not about planning in advance in all kinds of detail. 

The wax symbolises our substance. We are the church, we are God’s body. There should be no fear if we end up in strange places and we shouldn’t be disturbed if where we end up seems to be driven much more by society and the community than it does by some sort of a plan. 

Our confidence should be in the nature of the wax, which is our identity in Christ. That never changed in this whole picture. Where it ended up, what shape it took was decided by the environment and the needs of others rather than being based on our plans and dreams and strategies."

Since then, I have spent many hours praying and pondering on what I saw and what it means. It was only eight years later, during the first year of lockdown in 2020 that I started to understand why God had shown me what He did.

I will share my thoughts on that in the next blog…