THE HISTORY OF DOUBLE PORTION

 

As a recent Bible college graduate in the early 2000s, my wife and I planted a church in a racially divided area of America.  I understood that we were there to help start a church and engage a community to accept God's change.  What I didn't realize is that the very thing I despised, "becoming a pastor," would be the very platform to help me understand those I would be ministering to in the future as an evangelist.

 

You see, I longed to be an evangelist.  From the moment I heard the first one speak, I knew that if I could be in the five-fold ministry this would be the ministry gift I wanted to become.   God had other plans in the beginning, and I was not able to understand that at the time.  Because I obeyed and became a pastor, it has expanded my ability to minister to pastors and their families over the years, and for that I am thankful for God's grace through that difficult time.

 

During this time, I began to search and become hungry for the "Greater Glory" of the last days outpouring prophetically pointed to in Scripture.  I knew that the Church was not experiencing all of what God intended us to be partnered with, and I began to pick the brains of older ministers.  I would sit at their feet, listening to their stories and testimonies of revivals gone past.  Their passion and detailed remembrances ignited me to find that ceiling and somehow stand on top of it in order to build upon it.

 

This pursuit led me to England and to a hidden Pentecostal treasure trove in the forests of the English countryside. I was given permission to search through and read the annuals and accounts recorded by men and women of God who had tasted the outpouring at the turn of the 20th century.  This ignited me further.

 

As I searched and compiled, I found so many accounts of average believers doing extraordinary exploits because they understood something.  Although they were grateful for all the gospel work that had been done by so many before them, these brother and sisters were not caught up with looking back and remembering the fondness of yesteryear's revivalists.  They understood that they were living in a moment and on the edge of it!  They knew what they were experiencing was portioned out for their generation.

 

I had no choice but to pursue this leading of becoming a missionary evangelist.  I felt like an Elisha and what I had been reading and experiencing from the "Old Guard" felt like a mantle being placed on my shoulders.  Like Elisha, I had to make the choice to follow Elijah and learn.

 

The name of our ministry had already been confirmed through a local pastor that was more like a father to so many ministers in our area.  Many would drive from far just to experience this God-given gift of fatherhood.  One night before I left for England, my wife and I were privileged to be standing in the altar after an amazing message.  We were not expecting for anything more than just being filled up with the presence of God, but often it is when you are not expecting it that God speaks in very explicit and direct ways.

 

The pastor put his hand upon our foreheads and began to announce directly what the Holy Spirit had planted upon his tongue.  He spoke about the need for transferring wisdom, passion, and anointing to coming generations.  Then he spoke about the law of the double portion and about Elijah and Elisha's relationship.  It was a powerful word, but the thought still didn't strike me yet to call our ministry “Double Portion Ministries.”

 

It became a seed: a seed that needed water, a seed that needed more light, a seed that sprouted up over many years. That seed has grown into what we now call Double Portion Ministries.