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Our
Vision
and Mission
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Vision
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The vision of Raven Ministries is to
encourage and strengthen Pastors and their families in the day-to-day
battle for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and to seek out Pastors &
Ministers who no longer serve in the Ministry of due to their personal
failure. We strive to let them know that God desires to restore
them to relationship with and service to Him.
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The
vision of Raven Ministries can be traced back to the Great Commission
found in Matthew 28:19, 20 [KJV]
- We are to teach all nations (baptizing them in
the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and teaching them to observe
Christ’s command).
- God recognized we would need leaders to
demonstrate how to do this and to equip us for the same work, so he
gave some of us gifts to accomplish this (Ephesians 4:7, 11, 12).
- Such a task is not going to go unnoticed by the
Adversary of Christ.
- Because our Enemy is not physical, our fight is
not physical (Ephesians 6:11, 12).
- So then, how do we fight? We fight with
spiritual weapons (II Corinthians 10:4). Some of the obvious
weapons are The Word of God, Prayer and Worship. These are
extremely effective, but they are not the only weapons to which we have
access. Jesus demonstrated by His life that we fight Satan by
coming against him in the opposite spirit. Pride is fought with
humility…rebellion with submission…anger with gentleness….
discouragement with encouragement.
- One of the most typical attacks of Satan is to
bring things into the life of a Christian that will discourage him or
her. When we are discouraged, we are not available for God to
use. Pastors and leaders are no different. One of the most
effective attacks of Satan against the Church is to discourage the
Pastor.
- That is why we feel it is so important to have
a plan within our churches to constantly encourage our Pastors and
their families in practical and tangible ways. Why wait for Satan
to bring a Pastor, and subsequently the local body of believers, to his
knees? By loving and encouraging our Pastors we can drastically
reduce the opportunities he has to bring discouragement.
- Luke 22:31, 32 says, “And the Lord
said, Simon, Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may
sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not:
and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.
- Peter is representative of the Pastors,
missionaries, apostles and evangelists. Satan desires to grind
them to powder. But, Jesus has prayed for them. Raven
Ministries and countless other ministries that serve Pastors &
their families are the hands, feet and voices that respond to Jesus’
intercession. More than 1600 men who go into full time
ministry leave the ministry per month, that’s over 17,000 ministers
leaving every year. Seventeen thousand pulpits are left empty
every year and we don’t know who will be next.
Our
Mission
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Our
Mission
is to encourage and strengthen Pastors and their families on a
one-to-one basis, and equip the Church of Jesus Christ to do the
same.
The term we use
to describe encouraging and strengthening Pastors is “Paje de
Armas.” This Spanish term translated into English is Armor
Bearer. The best illustration of this that we have seen is in the
movie Lord of the Ring – Return of the King. Mr. Frodo,
completely discouraged and exhausted, is making his final trek to cast
the ring into the fire and Sam says to him: "I cannot carry your
burden, but I can carry you.”
We seek to teach the Body of Christ that they are soldiers as well as
sheep. As Soldiers of the Cross we are obligated to stand in the
gap for Pastors/Ministers to prevent the onslaught by Satan who
attempts to destroy their ministry and relationship with Christ. This
is done by encouraging, supporting, strengthening and challenging
Pastors/ Ministers and their families in a variety of practical ways. |
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Raven Ministries is
currently active in Northern California,
El Salvador, Costa Rica and Adelaide Australia.
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