While I am no longer a member of Community of Christ, and don’t foresee that changing any time soon, I nevertheless retain my love for all of the Restoration and continue to be intrigued in how the Spirit has spoken through dreams, visions, prophecies, and revelations to people throughout the Restoration.
After the recent publication of “The Book of Our People”, which I started compiling in late 2022, someone indicated to me that I was missing this prophecy from Everett Graffeo, which as I understand had some push to get it included in the Doctrine and Covenants. I decided to publish this revelation as a stand alone and also revise the book I compiled to include it.
I spent many restless nights recently while in Lodwar, Northeast Kenya. It was with desert clarity and the coolness of the night that I looked up at the stars. Later in Monrovia, Liberia, from the heat of the day captured in my room, I sweated through the night, mulling over in my prayers the meaning of what I had experienced during those days in Lodwar.
I tried to listen to what I was sensing as the Spirit of God nudged me into wakefulness. My mind turned rounnd and round, the ideas that were emerging in my mind, and they grew tighter and tighter as I lay there in the night. As usual, I ended up sitting quietly in my bed praying. Oftentimes in that setting, I am unable to rest again until I put down in writing this stirring of my spirit. When finally I had the substance of my feelings down in a language that puts flesh to the presence of the Spirit, I was able to sleep again. It was cast and recast in the following nights and it burned in my bosm until I was finally at peace with the words.
I want ever to be obedient to the voice that speaks to my heart and mind. So what I share with you today, is done in faith and humbleness of spirit. I bear the responsibility of putting into words, my experience of what I discern to be the Spirit of God.
I humbly realize that your trust and love for me, even as you have for all these on this rostrum, as well as leaders in your congregations, places a heavy responsibility upon me to be nothing more than I am, nor to claim anything more than being an imperfect vessel who is loved by God. Thus, I share with you the joinnt effort of spirit and flesh, human and divine, the inspiration of God in my human experience.
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For many years you have sought to find a new name for the church. You have taken it upon yourselves to discovevr a name for God’s people. You have been free to do this, but you have been unable to agree upon such a name. Do not be discouragegd! Be assured, my beloved friends and brothers and sisters, there is a name for you. The Spirit of God rests among you and in you as you are transformed as God’s people. A new name is even now emerging out of your midst.
You are called to be a prophetic people and, as such, God will write this new name upon your hearts. It will arise from out of your midst as a result of your faithful service in the name of the One who gives you life. This name will honor who you have been, but will create an image of what you are called to be as God’s people in the future. The na,e will call you to the kingdom task in your daily life as individuals, as families, and as communities of God’s joy. The name will affirm your calling as the children of God and will unite you as a people from all the nations of the Earth. It will stir the imagination of those who yet will hear the gospel; it will quicken the hearts of the young; it will be a balm of peace to those who have longed for the fulfillment of God’s will in and through the church. Testimonies of assurance and affirmation will be shared abroad by many as the Spirit brings confirmation.
Be responsive to the call of God’s Spirit to be transformed, and in God you will find your identity and by God’s grace you will be given a new name. Follow the leadings of God’s Spirit, which shall be manifest through the leadership of the First Presidency and your prayerful dialogue, as God’s people responding to the call heard round the world. If you will faithfully respond to the call of Transformation 2000, by God’s grace, even as a spring of living water brings life to desert places, so shall God’s name bring new life and hope to you, as it springs forth from out of your midst through the quickening presence of thee Spirit of God. The time is ripe! Grace and courage be with you as you fulfill the call of God in the name and Spirit of Christ our Lord. Amen.
Your Brother in Christ,
Everett Graffeo, Presiding Evangelist