The Value of Obscurity

By Kerry Denten

Almost all of my working life I have been in the public eye in one form or another. For twenty years, I have been involved as a radio announcer. I have also worked in high profile public promotions, and the pulpit has always made way for me during nearly 30 years of church life.

To be more specific, at the beginning of 1997 I joined the pastoral team of Christian Life Centre Mount Annan. It was a church that, during the renewal, experienced such an outpouring of the Holy Ghost, in excess of 200,000 visitors walked through the doors to drink at the “well” — and I was the church’s conference co-ordinator, dealing with and, yes, even schmoozing with, almost “everyone who was anyone” during the heat of that turbulent and exciting time.

From there God thrust me into an itinerant ministry where, within months of its beginning, I was experiencing such momentum in my increasing profile and supposed impact that the accolades began to come thick and fast: “prophet to the nations,” “formidable reputation,” “Australia’s prophet,” and more (God forbid!!). As a result there were almost more invitations than I could handle and it appeared that “the world was my oyster.”

But, thankfully, all that came to an abrupt end as 1999 drew to a close. God had intervened with an absolute determination to see my family and I correctly changed and properly prepared for what was to come in our lives and ministry. Graham Cooke taught me you can never embrace anything properly while you’re holding onto something else, because a proper embrace requires both arms. In other words, to fully embrace something new in God, you have to completely let go of the old to take hold of the new — and let go of everything, we did.

The beginning of the year 2000 saw the beginning of a three year season during which we began to be molded all the more to the ways of the Kingdom.

Psalm 103:7 teaches us that “(God) made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel.” NIV

The nation of Israel was no stranger to the miraculous. They had seen God deliver them from Egypt with more riches than they could possible imagine. They had seen God part the Red Sea allowing all three million of them to cross over safely, after which they watched the waters close in on and wipe out the entire Egyptian army. They had seen God miraculously provide manna, water and quail from thin air and rock. They had experienced what it was to wander the desert without sickness or any of their clothes or shoes wearing out.

Now, while Moses had seen these same events, his was a totally different experience of God. Moses knew what it was to be at the top of his game as an Egyptian citizen. He was skilled in war, in science, literature and politics – and at the age of forty, the place where they say life begins, his seemed to come to an end. After inappropriately exerting his gift as a deliverer by killing an Egyptian, Moses found himself tending another man’s sheep for forty years in the loneliness of the hot Middle Eastern sun.

We don’t know a lot about what went on during those years but what we do know for sure is that Moses was changed as a result. When confronted by a burning bush and being commanded by God to go and confront Pharaoh, Moses argued that he was incapable of doing so because he was a “nobody” with nothing to say and no way to say it.

Regardless of what transpired over the following years, one thing is for certain; while Moses was willing to do the will of God, he was happiest when he was alone in the presence of God. Which would you prefer: “these (flipping) people you gave me . . .” or “Moses met with God face to face as with a friend”? One response came out of his place of profile, the other from a place of obscurity. I know what my choice would be.

There is absolute truth in Jesus’ words when He taught us that “if you want to gain your life, you will lose it,” but the converse is also true: if you lay your life down for God and for others, you will find it!

A part of the reason for writing this article is because of my concern over the upsurge of popularity that both the prophetic and apostolic are gaining once again, coupled with the proliferation of attempts by many would-be prophetic or apostolic ministries to bring yet another “definitive word” to the Body of Christ. For quite some time, the deep concern of my heart has been that many of the people bringing these “prophecies” are not doing so for the edification and exhortation of the Body, but rather, as a way of lifting their own profile to hopefully gain the “15 minutes of fame” and the “international ministry” they secretly long for.

Take a look around you at some of the more respected senior prophetic ministries around the world today and you will notice that, at best, we might hear something issued by them once every two years. Have you ever wondered why? Paul Cain taught me that “the more mature a prophet becomes, the more silent he becomes.” What does this say about the proliferation of prophecy posted on the Internet during the last few years?

As it was for Moses, Jesus likewise wants to teach us His ways — the ways of the Kingdom. The way up, is down. If you want to be first, you must be last. If you want to receive, you must give. If you want to lead, you must serve. If you want to live . . . you must die.

We have foolishly allowed the standards and logic of the corporate world to permeate our thinking and our belief systems in the western church. We have swallowed the lie that tells us we are unsuccessful unless we are seeing financial, numerical and market-share growth in every area of our lives. But ask yourself this: was Jesus unsuccessful in the Garden of Gethsemane? Was Jesus unsuccessful while being flogged by the Romans and mocked by the crowds? Was Jesus unsuccessful while hanging on the cross? Was Jesus unsuccessful by lying dead in a tomb? Was Jesus unsuccessful by departing the scene into relative obscurity to allow another, the Holy Spirit, to take His place?

Rob Holmes says of me, “if you scratch him, he bleeds Philippians 3.” That’s because in embracing the thing that God has been teaching my wife and I these past few years, I have discovered the vast richness and the overwhelming sweetness of the apostle Paul’s words as he told the Philippian church that everything he thought was of value according to the world system, was in fact, a “big ol’ pile of crap” (modernized from the KJV by the writer).

Try and wrap your mind around this: Paul, arguably the greatest of the apostles; the writer of almost two thirds of the New Testament; the man who had the great revelation about the Body of Christ and the reality of the church; this great scholar who showed us the way to both power and grace; he says that “.. what I thought was to my gain, I now consider loss” therefore “I want know Christ and the fellowship of his sufferings being made like Him in His death, so that somehow, I might attain to the resurrection of the dead.”

Paul knew that the way up was down. He knew that in order to gain his life he had to lose it. He knew that “to live is Christ, to die is gain.” Paul knew that the way of the Kingdom was his model, not the teachings of Steven Covey, Anthony Robbins or, dare I respectfully say it, even John Maxwell.

Remember, Paul makes his amazing statements from the obscurity of a prison cell; an obscurity that had such impact, we are still living out of its legacy today.

I have been reticent to write or publish anything these past few years and, as my fingers work the keyboard, I am equally as reticent to break that silence because publishing an article on such a widespread list somewhat defeats the purpose of obscurity. But my heart has been burdened for some time that for those aspiring to the prophetic and apostolic, this is a vital lesson which we all must learn if we are to make a successful transition into the coming season.

Do you remember one of the key desires of God for the renewal — that it would be nameless and faceless? There were an awful lot of nameless and faceless “celebrities” during that time, weren’t there?

Without going into all the detail, in 1995 God told me that there would be three seasons to the present move of God and that each distinct season and transition would mirror the Gospels and the Book of Acts. In speaking about the Book of Acts, God said that of those who once held places of prominence, the wise ones would step back from the picture and become fathers, builders and trainers to the “church empowered.” In other words, with all joy, these people will willingly leave the spotlight as the “teaching superstars” to work with churches in relative obscurity to see the Body released to do the work of the Kingdom and fulfill their call both corporately and individually.

To that aim, I have been actively involved in the ministry again for two years but hopefully and thankfully, you may never have known it. During this time I have had many opportunities to minister again in foreign countries, I have done consultative work with churches in various parts of Australia and have built into our local church in Sydney and in every case I have found that I have managed to be far more effective when almost no-one but the local people concerned knew that I am there.

The ability to concentrate on the tasks of building the Kingdom with local church teams is far more focused and effective when you don’t have to fight against the pressures of “the preaching circuit” where everyone knows your name and your face and, as a result, everyone wants a piece of you — and because you secretly desire the fame, you’re happy to give it to them.

But just remember; if you yield to the supposed “glamour” of an “international ministry,” it will all be to the detriment of the effectiveness that comes out of your value of obscurity.

Kerry Denten

Originally posted on the Storm Harvest Prophetic e-mail list.
Reprinted by Permission from the author.

Tagged as: Leadership, The Apostolic, The Prophetic