How the Love of God Project happened…
Origins:
In 1991 I received an impartation concerning God’s love through which I was spiritually empowered to experientially grasp His love through faith. Over the last two decades this initial epiphany became cognitively enriched, revelatory, faith: my understanding of the nature of God’s love has been radically transformed. The Love of God Project exists to pass on and strengthen this same reality in others.
Our Frailty
Although the Scriptures are objectively true, our interpretations of them are not necessarily so, and our experiences with God are often misconstrued. We must act upon what we believe, but it is wise to recall that “we know in part” and “we prophesy in part”. Generally speaking we “obey in part” as well, and our obedience often affects the purity of our understanding. I recognize that my understanding, experience, obedience and power are not what they will be, and not what they could be. Also, any revelation or empowering I’ve received concerning God’s love is more a response to my need, not a result of my sanctity.
Despite this, my conviction is that this ministry is restoring neglected truth, correcting misunderstandings and establishing a stronger foundation in the knowledge of God in the lives of others. It is a means God is working with to impart strength to maintain a foundation of faith in Biblical truth which leads to experiencing His love. The Love of God Project is strengthening the Body of the Messiah.
Development
At this point we could refer you to testimony after testimony about the life changing power of this message. However, this was not always the case. Our essential message has not changed since 1991, but the way we’ve presented the message has.
Here’s how, why and when:
Gripped by freshly enlivened truths about God’s love I immediately began to teach them in every available venue. The ministry was mildly effective. Generally speaking it did not transform people’s understanding, priorities, experience and relationships. Yet, I continued to share this message everywhere I went. (What else could I do?) The lack of results exacted an emotional toll on me and I began to have lower expectations, doubting the power of the revelation (as I presented it) to revolutionize lives. Although this word still burned in me by the late ‘90’s my perspective was that the season for this message was past.
This changed. In 2003 a beloved and respected friend was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. He was told that he had three months to live. As a final personal request he asked me to organize and write some of what I had shared with him and make it available to others. As a result, I revisited my notes and asked three intercessors to review them. Each had revelatory visitations. Needless to say, I was encouraged. (By the way, my friend was miraculously healed.)
The following summer (2004) I taught a class on God’s Love at the FIRE School of Ministry in Manhattan. By the end of the course the consensus was this: practically all of the students’ lives were transformed. As a result I realized the message was alive and potentially as powerful as what I had first experienced, but what was being communicated could not be contained in a forty-five minute sermon. I realized that for the revelation to be received the venue and the manner the message was communicated needed to be changed. We proceeded to do that.
Taking Action
So, in August of 2004, we began to work on developing a book and a seminar. The Love of God Project was formed. We transcribed the tapes of the classes and worked with the lesson plans. I began to write. As we did, over the next few years, we contributed a column in our regional Christian newspaper. People and pastors in our area were reading and being comforted, challenged and changed.
In September of 2005 our ministry hosted two former students as interns.
Lesley Hilton worked under Katie George’s direction. They produced a coloring book. Since then it has been translated into over a dozen languages (from Chinese to Chechewan).
Lindsey Quick-Lamica stayed with our fellowship for a year. By the fall of 2006 she finished recording a wonderful, edifying, life changing, inspiring children’s worship CD.
These resources worked with our curriculum and have been anointed tools in the hands of the Lord.
In 2006 we started giving seminars. Over the last five years we’ve spoken this message in varied venues about fifty times. In the summer of ’06 we completed a manual which became the foundation for our ministry’s book, God’s True Love (published in 2008). The book has been used in classroom settings, small groups, leadership teams and in the devotional times of ministry leaders and serious disciples. Currently we’re completing a Mandarin translation and plan on distributing PDFs of this work to Chinese believers.
Since 2006 we’ve put together teaching CDs, recording the seminar and special instruction on the true nature of God’s love. In 2009 we recorded an acoustic worship CD, “Response”. We recorded an audio-book version of God’s True Love in 2010.
Mission
It is our conviction that the Love of God Project has received something valuable from the Lord: a revelation together with a commission. We have sought to honestly and faithfully steward this illumination. We are sharing what we received from the Lord, not repeating platitudes. We are breaking ground and restoring truth.
We are reestablishing a Biblical and prophetic perspective on God and His heart. As we seek to edify we find there are times we must dismantle false views of God’s love as a precursor to building up the churches.
The Love of God Project relies upon The Testimony (the Scriptures) to renew the mind of the disciple, spark faith and affect the heart. The Scriptures have an enduring, authoritative, powerful, foundational, God-breathed quality which personal anecdotes do not share.
Those who attend to this instruction are often, in consequence, deeply assured of God’s love for them. Through the Scriptures we seek to facilitate mature discipleship out of an enriched relationship with God. We present a call to conversion. We’ve found that the strength of our heart’s comfort in God’s love is matched by the intensity of the challenge to press on to know the Lord. Part of our ministry’s goals is to enable the participant to help others as they have been helped.
On the back of our ministry’s book we ask,
“What if the nature of God’s love for you is different than you think? … Wouldn’t you want to know?”
Well, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you want your friends to know, too?
Agape,
David Harwood