Next Gen. Leader Launches Global Movement

CHIP: A lot of people probably don't know what an IF:Gathering is and maybe give us just a little background and history of how that started and grew and where it's at and how that has gone now from the IF:Gathering to Gather 25…

JENNIE: Yeah. So, IF:Gathering has been the most beautiful dream, You know it was called IF:Gathering because the question was: If God is real, then how do we live and how do we live surrendered lives? And so it's been so fun because it's taken so much risk and it's been such a team project where thousands and thousands of leaders from around the world are hosting their own gathering and it's just so much fun. It feels like a giant group project.

And I, candidly, I couldn't have imagined it getting bigger. Our reach is really far and I think we reached a hundred and seventy-nine countries and I really couldn't imagine anything more than what IF:Gathering was, but there was a friend of ours that reached out and said, “We're going to give a million dollars to your ministry. And it's not for IF:Gathering, it's for something God's going to call you to in the future to mobilize the Church.” And their faith was the first sign that I ever thought maybe there is something else. And I just waited for the Lord. And was two years later, I had a vivid dream that Jesus was coming back in ten years. And it was an urgent dream. And it felt like it was from God.

In fact, the night before, the night I dreamed the dream, a friend of mine had prayed, God, would you give Jennie a vision in her sleep? Because I was feeling a little restless and confused about what was next. And so when I woke up from that dream, I knew that we should gather the entire global Church. And that sounds crazy, like who thinks about something like that? But it just didn't feel like a big deal to me. I thought, We've got technology; we should do this. And with IF:Gathering, we've been gathering women all over the world. And so I just began to share it with partners like Bible Project and, YouVersion and the Bible app and RightNow Media, all these partners. And they all just were like, “Yes and amen, let's do it.” And so I realized pretty quickly we would have a big team to be able to pull this off.

And so it's happening on February 28th, March 1st in the U.S. and March 1st, March 2nd around the world, a lot of the places, we are gathering the entire global church in 2025. And so we're inviting every single person that's a believer in Jesus to come to these twenty-five hours. And we're going to pray, worship, repent. You're going to see stories from every continent of all that God is doing. Just like this conversation you and I have had, Chip, is so encouraging that God is moving in such powerful ways in prisons and on college campuses and with women all over the world, this is going to be that for the Church.

It is going to be, I mean, you're just not going to believe all the stories of the persecuted Church. We're doing an entire hour on the persecuted Church. But most of these events will be happening live around the world. And so seven live events in twenty-five hours, and then a few parts are prerecorded, and we're going to tell all the stories from every continent as well of how God is moving.

CHIP: Isn't it amazing by the way, you and I have a very clear doctrinal perspective on life, right?

JENNIE: Right.

CHIP: But God's tent is very, very big.

JENNIE: That's right.

CHIP: And the Apostles Creed was written for a reason and we can differ on all kind of secondary issues and have opinions, but none of those matter nearly as much as lost people coming to Christ, found people actually maturing and becoming disciples, and the Church meeting the greatest needs in the world in communities. I guess the one place I wanted to go to was, I'm sure I'll get someone to say, “So, are you telling me, Chip, that Jennie got a dream from God and Jesus will be definitely coming back…

JENNIE: No

CHIP: …in ten years and she's making a prophecy?” Let me tell you that Jennie is not saying that, right?

JENNIE: No, I'm definitely not saying that. Nobody knows the hour or the day. I know my Bible. But I do think what it did for me, I think He could.

CHIP: Yes.

JENNIE: And I think that urgency should be in all of us. And you see it in the early Church. You see it in all of the disciples. an expectation that Jesus was coming back soon throughout Acts. And so I think, I think the bigger question is if He did come back in our lifetime, are we ready? And I would just say the answer to that is absolutely we are not. We have 5.5, at least, billion people that do not know Jesus, and many of which have never ever heard the name of Jesus.

So we all have a responsibility here, whether it's to college students at a nearby college or whether it's across the world to give to the organizations that are helping there or to share with our barista at Starbucks. Like, we all have this call in our lives to make disciples of every nation and every tongue. That's what He asked us to do. And so we really have a pretty big task ahead.

And you know, 5.5 billion people right now would perish if He came back today. So I do think we've all got to share that load and we've got to come together and dream about what it would look like.

And we're going to have, it'll be an incredible event. A lot of people will want to participate because of the level of the speakers we have from around the world, the stories that we're going to tell that's going to blow everybody's minds. But at the end of the day, the hope is we come together to imagine how we can work together like we've never worked together before. If He is coming back soon, and when you think about that question, if Jesus came back soon, we would work together, we would make sure the gospel was simple and clear and that everybody gets it. We're building a simple tool that's going to come out of this that is a sixty-second explainer video of the gospel that we're working on in conjunction with Bible Project and it's just so fun to imagine that we could really be a part of watching the Bible get to and the gospel get to every single person on earth.

The reality is we live in a time that that's possible, technology makes that possible as well as things like illumiNations who's translating the Bible into the last remaining languages that have yet to have translations. So it's such a big, fat group project, but Gather25 is going to show that off and everyone's going to get to see what God is doing on earth today and also what it's going to take to finish the task.

CHIP: Well, part of what I wanted to have you share and have the Living on the Edge family hear you have this gathering, all these countries, hundreds of thousands of women or millions of women get together. The danger is “Oh, well, Jennie must be more holy. Jennie must be smarter. Jennie must have something special that all of us don't have.” And part of what I guess it's been my life message because I know me and every “great Christian” that I've ever got really, really, really close to and gotten beyond sort of the superficial, I mean, really know them, I've just never met an extraordinary person.

JENNIE: Right.

CHIP: Here's a real left-handed compliment. I know you well enough to know you're just a really ordinary person and that you have all the ups and downs as everyone else. I think we had one conversation maybe a year, year and a half or so ago that you really were in a high stress, difficult situation. And I want people to know that your ordinariness or their ordinariness, far from being a detractor, it actually is what sets up God to get credit for things.

JENNIE: Absolutely. The only qualification I would say I bring to the table is I do say yes to whatever He says. And I've done that long enough that He's made the cliffs that I'm jumping off of higher and higher. Because that's what you do. When you go cliff jumping, you usually are terrified and you jump off a little bitty cliff. And then you realize that was kind of fun. And you go up on another one. And it gets higher and higher. And right now, mine is raising 18.5 million dollars for a global event for the world, the Church together for the first time in history and all that sounds really big and terrifying, and it is.

And on a regular basis I am, you know, so, I remember recently somebody asked the question like, “Either this is arrogant or you're crazy or this is a move of God,” and I was like well the crazy the foolish I get that, like, there's lots of days I feel foolish. The arrogant, I never feel. And the reason I never feel it is I'm around people that are literally risking their lives for the gospel.

CHIP: Yes.

JENNIE: And it just puts your perspective into a whole different category because, what we're doing in obeying God, whatever it is, not many people listening right now could die because of it. And so, you know what? I'm going to give them that they're not ordinary people. I think that God has given them special ability to persevere through the unthinkable. But the rest of us, it's like, yeah, we're just doing the best we can to follow God, and I don't think people are that different. Again, I'm comparing myself to prisoners. I could be there.

I remember I met one girl, and she had had a little bit too much to drink and killed two kids. And I'm like, that could happen to people I know. Like, that is not crazy. That is not a premeditated murder, but she killed two kids with a bad decision and a bad night and she's in jail for the next seventeen years. So let's, you know, let’s just not make these comparisons of the us and them about anyone or anything.

I have been blessed with a lot of knowledge about God, so my theology, I think, is pretty strong. I'm quite sure there's things I'm wrong on. I'll find out when I get to Heaven. And I promise you, there's things all of us are going to find out when we get to Heaven, we didn't know the Holy Spirit was that powerful and we could pray like that. We didn't know that this was possible and we could, you know, do this. We didn't, there's going to be things we didn't know.

But do you believe the gospel? Do you believe that the gospel means that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? Do you believe that the gospel means that you've been equipped for good works that He prepared in advance for you to do? This isn't even works we thought of. This is works He prepared in advance for you to do and that He equips you for every good work that He's called you to do. That's the Bible. So if all of that is true, then we have work to do.

And if we're breathing still, I don't care how old you are and listening, there is work for you to do. We need you to, in your spot, whatever place He's put you. Acts 17 says that he puts us in our allotted time, He decides the times we will live and he puts us in our allotted boundary. He draws our boundary lines and He says, This is when you're going to live and this is where you're going to live, so that perhaps people may feel their way to God. So every single person in their place is there in this time breathing so that perhaps people may feel their way to God.

And if we all can just see ourselves as people helping people feel their way to God and do it, actually do it and quit fighting about everything else. I sound really angsty today. I'm not actually, I actually really get it. And there've been so many days that I've felt cynical. There've been so many days that I've felt disappointed in people and the way the world is going. I feel all of those things too. I think I just feel tired of focusing on things we can't control and missing out on the things that we actually have been called to do. And so this is how the world changes and I deeply believe it.

CHIP: As you were talking, you know, it's part of your giftedness. It's very simple. It's very clear. You quoted Acts 17, you quoted Ephesians 2, you quoted, you know, Romans chapter 1, the power of the gospel, very biblical, very clear. And as you were doing that, I was thinking of people listening thinking, I believe that, I believe that, I believe that.

JENNIE: Mm.

CHIP: And then the question kind of pops up, Well, why is she so urgent and focused and clear on this right now? And I feel like I'm often in a fog.

JENNIE: Mm.

CHIP: I don't want to go down a sort of uh a negative track, but I think both of us would observe there are certain things happening among Christians and in our culture that, can we say distract, that sort of dilute that kind of faith.

JENNIE: Let's be real. I've got circumstances today that can make that foggy. You know faith is a gift and I really believe that because I don't feel like I've drummed this up. I think this is something God has gifted me with and He has called me to use my voice to help people know Him. So at the same time, what I have seen is, and I think this is a good little practice before we end, is just to really look at your life.

CHIP: Yes.

JENNIE: And I can lead an exercise to do that. And it's similar to what I do in the prisons or in, you know, on the college campuses, but it applies to every one of us. And you're right, there's a lot of things warring for our attention. We find ourselves in a battle. We are wartime people.

CHIP: Yes.

JENNIE: It's spiritual forces that are fighting over us. And the prize, the thing they're fighting over is our faith, and so I think this is where, you know, we really have to do some spiritual work. This isn't just to read your Bible every day, because some of you do that and you still forget.

CHIP: Yes.

JENNIE: This is whose dominion are you under? And if you are under the enemy's dominion in any form or fashion, you have given him an inch, then he will take that inch and he will consume your mind. He will make you care more about your reputation than your holiness. He will make you care more about what you're doing and your importance in the world than your surrender and your obedience. He'll make you care more about money than people. These are, you know, these are his ways. He's done it throughout history. And so I think maybe we could just end with, with a little practice where everybody listening could just consider: where have I given the enemy an inch?

CHIP: Let's do it. Walk us through it.

JENNIE: Okay, so, wherever you are, I want you to close your eyes and I want you to imagine you're just in some great place that you love that's just beautiful. And I want you to imagine the wind blowing and all the things that that place contains for you. And I want you to imagine that Jesus walks up and He sits just knee to knee right across from you. And the two of you are going to have a chat. And He's sitting right across from you. And now I just want to give a little bit of space and quiet. And I want you just to share with Him whatever sin and whatever weight or distraction is consuming you right now. And just say it to Him, wherever you are.

(PAUSE)

And now I want you to imagine how He's looking at you as you tell Him all of this. What's His face toward you? Is He angry? Is He happy to be here? Is He sad?

(PAUSE)

I think He's really happy to be here. I think He's really grateful that you told Him things he already knows. And I think He's insanely compassionate toward you. And what you just shared with Him, I would encourage you to share with people you love and trust. And as we do that practice, as we confess our sin to one another and we confess it to God, He is faithful to heal us.

Confession isn't salvation. Salvation is putting our hope in the blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness, the only means of forgiveness, for our sins. What confession does is it heals us. And where the enemy has taken ground in your life, whether it's through loneliness and disappointment, or whether it's, which it would be a weight described in Hebrews, or sin, which would be decisions that you've knowingly or unknowingly made that are offensive to God, either category, what those things do is they push us further and further into ourselves and into and under the dominion of the enemy.

And I just believe, like I said earlier, the power of confession breaks the power of the enemy. And so we say out loud the things we're scared to say, and as we do that to each other, and as we do that to God, we find freedom, and we find wholeness, and what happens, what we've been talking about this whole time, is you don't judge other people.

When you're aware of your own issues, you don't judge other people. When you're aware that there are things you're struggling with, you might share it with someone else and that opens the way for the gospel. All the things we're talking about begins with understanding our need for God, our personal need for God. There isn't a whole generation out there that needs God. Yes, there is, but that's not the problem. You need God and you can't take God to people until you recognize your own need for God. And as you do, there's this beautiful dependence that rises up in us and it just sets us free.

And now I can share my story really easily because I'm like, yep, I struggle with this. I struggle with pride. I struggle with anger sometimes towards my kids and towards people. I struggle with unforgiveness. And you begin to say that and you say, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and my compassionate God heals me and forgives me and begins to redeem that. So I think that is the way the world changes. I believe that in processing that and being honest about that, it puts us in our rightful place before God and before others.

CHIP: And as much as many of you were leaning in thinking, Oh good, the next generation, I'm glad someone's out there doing it. The real message is… God wants to work in me deeply before He's going to work through me significantly.

And so our Father, we close our time today and tell You how much that we need You. Lord, would you protect Jennie and her team? Would you meet all of her needs? And Lord, I just thank You that I get to know her and be her friend. We exalt You and we praise You. In Jesus' name, amen.