Founder of Homestead Heritage Dead at 77

 

(Photo source)

Blair Adams, the founder of the group that eventually became Homestead Heritage, died on Tuesday, July 27, 2021, at the age of 77. 

 I understand that Blair's family and close friends are mourning his death. That is natural, and so is the creation of a standard obituary. However, I also believe it's a disservice to the outlying areas around Homestead communities, and Waco in particular, to obscure how he felt about those who are not a part of the only Body of Christ that he recognized.

This isn't something Blair or his Homestead members express to the people whose support they covet, though it was preached as the word of God from the pulpit at Santa Fe Hall. This is how Blair taught his disciples to view other churches and believers in Christ. This is also part of his legacy. 

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. I'm talking about the sustaining sacrifice. I'm talking about the sacrifice that will not leave us as the churches that we came out of are now, are now standing-- desolate, empty! Amen. Full of competition, rivalry, amen, vainglory! Amen! Amen! No love welding and holding people together! Amen. I'm talking about a different kind of sacrifice, amen, that's not for self! Not what's in it for me! Amen. 

And when the sacrifice is over, so is the battle. So is the war. And listen folks, there's not many fronts that are still holding out. This is Thermopylae. This is the Alamo. Amen. Amen. Don't look to somebody else. If you find them let me know. I'm anxious to see them. I would love to join hand in hand with others who are taking a stand for the Father. But I'm afraid they're just not many left. The walls are crumbled. The gates are burnt with fire. I read in a magazine by one of the leading conservatives in this country, and these are his words: "The war is over. We have lost." So don't look there.

 Amen. Amen. And this is what I see as having happened to the larger church world. There are so many incredible gifts. You've heard me say this so many times before, but I would not be saying this again right now unless I felt like I had to. Believe me, I would not be saying it. There are so many incredible gifts. I marvel at the things I see in people I don't even know in the Evangelical church, in the Pentecostal church. I marvel at the capacity of mind. I marvel at the learning. I marvel at the wisdom. I marvel at the anointing, the power, the healings, the different things. Amen. All of that is out there. And all of that has not salvaged or saved the church. Not any of it. Look at the church. It has all of those things, and yet look where it is and where it's headed. Why aren't any of these great gifts saving the church? I mean, some of them I can feel my mouth drop open in awe. I've even done that with some of you here. Amen. But it's not going to save the church. 

 You can find a place outside. I can point to many men. I tell you there's not many here that could even claim to have the gifts that Mark Hanby Jr. had. And he's, he's still operating in that gift on some level. It's a little distorted and ugly, but you can feel it. He still has words of knowledge, speaks into people's lives, and such. Amen. Amen. But what has it really become? Nothing. Nothing. A big stage performance. Amen. Amen. And his life-- a wreck. And I'll tell you what else he lives with is constant restlessness-- a constant state of dissatisfaction. Because there is no rest except in Jesus. And there is no Jesus except his Body as he expresses that Body on earth. If you don't find your place in Jesus, in his Body, amen, you're going to be restless. Amen. You're going to be dissatisfied. And that's what happened to these men. Amen. Amen.

Brother Phillips-- who's gift would I rather exalt, and, and, magnify and lift up than the gift that brought me to God? And I would never deny that gift. It was incredible. It was an amazing gift. But all he saw was evangelism. It's the center of God's purpose. But without the circumference of God's Body, that center cannot find itself. Where is it going to center? Where is it going to come to rest? Where is it going to operate in its fullness? And there was an incredible dismissiveness of gifts of prophecy, of pastoral gifts, of other hard day-after-day grinding-it-out gifts. Amen. There was no respect for those things-- only evangelism. And that's where the whole church, evangelical church, is-- only evangelism. Amen.

 And it was an agony for God to deliver us from that mindset. It took him  years to deliver us from that mindset of evangelism. But I said a few days ago to someone, you know the problem with the Pentecostal church is it has no evangelism. Amen. Bringing people in one door and watching them go out another is not evangelism. Amen. Enticing people into the bed of our spiritual adultery is not evangelism. Amen. Amen. Amen.

 

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. And it, the evangelism trip always ends up saying I'd be able to win a lot more people if we just compromised our standard and, if we just didn't dress like this. And, really is that really in the bible, and is that really necessary? And, you know, that's just an add-on-- we could win thousands more. And that's what happens to all of them-- Pentecostal or the Evangelical church. It always ends up in compromise, because it's always thinking that the representation of God is more important than the presentation or the presence of God. So it's got all these gimmicks. It's got dancing girls and colored lights, and screens, and different things. And it's got all these gimmicks, because it lacks the presence of God. They don't believe the presence of the holy God is sufficient, amen, amen, to bring a change in people's lives and bring them into the kingdom. They think that dancing girls work better than the presence of God. And there's nothing in the bible about that. There's a lot about modesty, and sobriety, and all these other things, about how you dress, even in the New Testament. There's nothing in there about dancing girls. Nothing in there about strobe lights.  

 

This may all be surprising to those who were never members. It isn't to anyone who is or was a member of Homestead Heritage. We were accustomed to the manipulation.