Super Bowl XXXIV

NOTE - For those new to the List, the Spirit came on me unexpectedly two years ago during the Super Bowl and lingered for days. During the game the Lord spoke a number of prophetic messages concerning the players, the significance of their numbers, and the game's outcome. Several months later, Meri posted a word from Canada that Bob Jones had spoken the previous year. At that time, Jones had prophesied several things the Lord had also shown me including the significance of John Elway winning his first Super Bowl.

Last year during the Super Bowl the Lord used a situation that happened away from the game involving an Atlanta Falcon defensive back to show me a message concerning prophets and the importance of being "righteous" and not simply "right".

This year I honestly did not know or expect if the Lord would show me anything at all. There was no profound anointing like the first year or even a mild rebuke like last year. This year's message was contained in the identities of two men and is predictive in nature.

THE MESSAGE IN THIS YEAR'S SUPER BOWL

The prediction: In the coming year burnt-out pastors will return to ministry and embrace Five-Fold ministry, and particularly Apostolic ministry.

In 1981 the Philadelphia Eagles were taken to the Super Bowl by their driven coach, Dick Vermeil. Vermeil was young, intense, and known throughout the league as a controlling micro-manager. He often slept in his office after working late into the night. The Eagles were defeated in the Super Bowl by the Oakland Raiders 27-10 and shortly thereafter, Vermeil resigned from coaching and coined the term "coaching burn-out." For the next 14 years he observed football from a network broadcasting booth. When coaxed out of retirement two seasons ago, the St. Louis Rams (formerly of Los Angeles) were one of the worst teams in the league and badly in need of a miracle. Most experts doubted that Vermeil would be effective. He was, after all, known for his almost abusive intensity and control, traits modern athletes would not easily respond to. In his first two years his team won only a handful of games and his team was reportedly on the edge of mutiny. Things appeared even more dismal early this season when the Rams' new high-dollar quarterback, Trent Green, went down with a knee injury in the third pre-season game. Onto the field game Green's backup, a much-traveled and unheralded second-year pro named Kurt Warner.

THE JOURNEY'S STORY

Many of you know Warner's story. He had labored at a small college, Northern Iowa, where he had started only during his senior season. Undrafted by the pros, he spent three years in Arena Football -- a football sideshow played with reduced numbers on a field scarcely larger than a hockey rink -- and one season in Europe quarterbacking an Amsterdam team. He tried out for the Green Bay Packers but was cut, and was scheduled for a try-out with Chicago but suffered a spider bite that caused his throwing arm to swell. Meanwhile, he had met and married a young divorced mother of two children. Her oldest child, Zachary, had suffered brain damage and blindness when accidentally dropped as an infant by his biological father. Warner adopted the children and supported his family by working for $5.50 an hour stocking supermarket shelves in Iowa. He kept his arm and dream in shape by tossing rolls of toilet paper. Dick Vermeil expected Warner to do okay leading the Rams. But no one expected him to shine. But by the end of the season, the Rams were 13-3 and Warner had thrown for 41 touchdowns. After each win, Warner gave glory to the Lord and even Sport Illustrated commented in their October 18 issue that "...by overcoming doubt and adversity at every turn, he (Warner) has earned the right to have his faith taken at face value."

MANY PASTORS----FALLING SHORT OF THEIR GOAL

Two years ago, after attending a conference in Dallas for apostles and prophets, I returned to the home group I pastored to find a visitor. A retired pastor from Iowa. The man and his wife had traveled to Montana to visit her son, a member of our group, and also because the Lord had told the man "someone in Montana will have a word for you." This man had risen in the ranks of his Pentecostal denomination through the years and had pastored several large churches. A couple years before his first wife had succumbed quite suddenly to cancer and he soon remarried a divorced woman. His denomination did not take kindly to this second marriage, and burnt-out by years of church service, he retired from the pulpit. "I had believed in the five-fold ministry for years," he told me. "But I'd never seen it used." Like Dick Vermeil, he had labored with intensity but had fallen short of his goal. Like Vermiel, in spite of his micro-managing, this pastor was a man of love. He often got "tickles in the spirit from Abba daddy." Vermiel, even in his first tenure with the Eagles, was known as a man who cared passionately for his players and was often chided for his emotional displays of crying.

VERMEIL AND WARNER--LESSONS IN PERSEVERANCE

This past Sunday the St. Louis Rams edged the Tennessee Titans 23-16 in one of the best games in Super Bowl history. Warner tossed the winning pass with two minutes to go and the teams tied. He was named the game's Most Valuable Player. Dick Vermeil finally had his Super Bowl victory. Curt Warner had gone from supermarket stock boy to the super market of NFL riches. But the spiritual lesson in this is the wedding of the pastoral with the apostolic. Dick Vermeil represents the church as we have known it with one man in authority, running the show, and often burning out and disappearing into the secular world. Curt Warner represents the apostolic. First of all, he wore number 13, not a number of ill fortune, but the number of Matthias, the 13th apostle chosen to replace the disgraced and deceased Judas Iscariot. Warner's path was one of perseverance and humility. He was quoted in USA TODAY as saying: "I've learned alot about perseverance; I've learned a lot about being humble and enjoying everything you get."

THE APOSTLE AND PERSEVERANCE

Second Corinthians, 12:12: "The things that mark an apostle - signs, wonders, and miracles - were done among you with great perseverance."

In post game interviews Warner often mentioned coach Vermeil and how Vermeil had cared about him not just as a player, but as a person. Rather than basking in the glory he was receiving, Warner consistently deflected the glory to Christ and talked about the value of being a part of something special, namely, being part of a team. The emphasis there is on the word "team".

NOW, THIS YEAR, MANY PASTORS WILL RETURN

What the Lord showed me through this game was that this year many pastors will return to finish unfinished business. The ability to "finish" is an apostolic anointing. This business will be "finished", as the pastoral office embraces the apostolic and gives it the freedom and opportunity to succeed.

The results, of course, will be super.

(One last thing for you trivia buffs. When Dick Vermeil lost his first Super Bowl in 1981 the game received a television share of 63. When he won his first Super Bowl this past Sunday, Vermeil had reached the age of 63. Performance (television exposure) had finally given way to maturity (age).)

Oh, and by the way, the burnt-out pastor that I mentioned above. After working for a couple years in a store selling appliances, this year he and his second wife returned to the ministry. This time not as the head man, but as a helpmate in team ministry.

DELEGATING AUTHORITY

An important difference in Vermeil's season this year was his ability to designate and delegate authority. He relied more on his assistant coaches. Interestingly, most of those assistants are former head coaches. This, I think, clearly points out how God would like to see five-fold ministry operate.