The Quest - by: David Damien

For most of my Christian life, I have felt like I was on a quest for something more. I'm sure many of you can relate to this feeling. No matter how wonderful things are in my life or ministry, I have this deep cry in my heart, an insatiable desire to see the glory of God made manifest in the earth through His Body and for the name of the Lord to be feared and honoured even among those who don't yet know Him.

And while I am so thankful for every visitation of the Lord (or what we call revival/touches/moves of God), it seems the promise of habitation, of a more permanent and continuous manifestation of the Presence of God in the Church, still eludes us. My longing has been to find out what is hindering the Lord from finding this resting place in the church of Canada (Psalm 132) and in this journey, I have come to one clear conviction: we will never experience the Church in its fullness as the place of the manifested presence of God until we are consumed with the oneness that Jesus spoke about in John 17.

I have faced a lot of spiritual opposition throughout our journey in Canada, but I have personally never experienced the kind of attacks which started last fall. Discouragement, extreme tiredness and a weariness of soul were coupled with a strong spiritual dullness, an insensitivity that made it all the harder to discern and stand against what was happening. For the first time in the last twelve years, I found myself trying to find a way to leave. I thought maybe I had run my part of the race and now the grace had lifted and I needed to hand the baton to the younger generation and get out. I just wanted to retreat at all costs.

A Living Corporate Dwelling
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22

The dwelling place of the Lord, the Holy Temple in the Church age, is by definition corporate - it is a spiritual house into which we, as living stones (1 Peter 2:4-5), are being 'built together' by God, the Master Builder. So although we may accomplish great feats for God in the exercise of our own giftings and anointing, as individuals we will never be able to experience the fullness of the glory of the Latter House for which we are longing. (Haggai 2:9)

Our Mandate
I believe that at different times God gathers groups (remnants) of people together and gives them specific mandates to contend for the breakthrough of one of more kingdom truths until they become accessible to and established in a wider representation of the body of Christ. And I believe that God has called together a company of believers in Canada under the banner of Watchmen for the Nations for just such a purpose. Watchmen was founded by Pastor Bob Birch, a man of deep prayer, humility and brokenness and a man that I was privileged to call a mentor and spiritual father. Pastor Bob's heart cry was to see the glory of God fill the church of Canada like the waters cover the sea. And he believed for this to happen, as Watchmen we must contend in two areas: 1) to see an answer to the prayer of Jesus in John 17 for unity in the body and 2) to see all believers posturing themselves to "hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church" and to then to simply obey.

For this reason, our determination in Watchmen has always been to press in for the release of greater levels of revelation and understanding of the oneness for which Jesus prayed. We walk in a corporate leadership model, gathering together, without human agenda, to seek the face of the Lord and to discern together His purposes and His ways. This longing for the corporate is why for so many years, Pastor Bob and then eventually myself, Gideon Chiu and others, have traveled across the nation, looking for those leaders who have the same heart (even if we were from different places or denominations, or generations or ethnic groups) so that together we might hear what the Lord was saying to the Church in this nation. And any time we as Watchmen released a prophetic word or a call for a gathering or any other initiative, every detail - the event, the location, the timing, the strategy - had already been discerned that "it seems right to the Holy Spirit and to us" by many leaders from across the nation". This fact may not have always been apparent, because first Pastor Bob and then later I functioned as a facilitator and communicator for this process. When there was another step in our journey, we would connect with leaders by phone, email, conference calls, and face to face meetings so that through the wisdom found in the multitude of counsel, whatever mandate the Lord was giving us could be clearly discerned. In this way, when we communicated to the wider body walking with us, it was not Pastor Bob or myself sharing on our own behalf, but on behalf of the whole team. And though we see in part and prophesy in part, we felt the wider the representation of leadership, the greater the safety and integrity of the prophetic voice and the greater the spiritual covering for the steps we took in our journey in the nation.

While I believe the Lord granted grace to this process for a season, I always felt this was just a preparatory step to achieving a more corporate expression of leadership and I knew the day would come when this role of connecting, facilitating, discerning and communicating would be carried by a wider team. I thought it might have happened sooner, but every time we would try to venture into this kind of transition, the Lord would constrain us that it was not quite yet the time.
The counsel

But at the end of last year, with the passing of Pastor Bob, something began to shift. It was as if one season was closing and something new was beginning. As a small group of leaders gathered in Toronto in mid February, the Lord started sovereignly placing the call to corporate ownership of the mandate of Watchmen more deeply within people's hearts. He then spoke to us that the time had come for a "Counsel" to be birthed and begin walking more visibly together as the corporate leadership team of Watchmen.


In the two months that followed, through much prayer and seeking of the Lord, the Counsel was formed. It is a team of about 35 leaders from throughout Canada who carry the heart and values of the Kingdom and who have committed to carry the responsibility to facilitate the mandate the Lord has given Watchmen in service to the larger body of Christ in Canada. Some will function in a more active role; others, due to their current ministry commitments will provide their wisdom, advice and covering in prayer. I have attached here the list of those who have agreed to serve on the Counsel in this season.

Our commitment as a Counsel will be what it has always been: to seek the Lord together for each step of our journey with Him and to do all we can to obey when He speaks. Although the Counsel includes people with recognized prophetic giftings, they will be open to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Body of Christ at large, weighing and testing any words that they receive from throughout the nation, with a heart simply to give the Lord the pleasure of speaking through whomever He chooses.

Once the Counsel has prayed and discerned together and can say with assurance that the next step in our journey "seems right to the Holy Spirit and to us", they will share this step (whether it be releasing a prophetic word or call or directive/strategy) with a wider circle of 100+ leaders, who are walking with this same heart for unity and seeking the Lord together, in their cities, regions and provinces of nation. Once these leaders come to a corporate agreement, this step will be released to the wider body of Christ so they, in turn, might discern and participate as the Lord leads them. In this way, we pray that the gifts in the whole body will be released in greater and greater measure.

I believe the formation of the Counsel is an important milestone in our journey as Watchmen, especially in light of the current mandate the Lord has given us: to see the canopy of His presence established by regular corporate seeking of His face in every province and territory and city in our nation.

The Season of New Beginnings

Seeing the birth of the Counsel is like a dream come true for me as it is something for which I have longed for many years. In the next day or so we will be sharing with you what we, as the Counsel, sense the Lord is saying about this season and about a call to a very important national leadership gathering to be held in Quebec this summer.

The greatest journey is yet ahead!

All my love
David

(from: Watchmen for the Nations website)