What Is "Shekinah?"

Shekinah Fellowship Blog Story

When I first started this blog in about 2006 or 2005, can't quite recall, the name Shekinah Fellowship in a Google search brought up zero results. Zero.

If anything that Brant Baker did had a lasting effect on society, it would certainly be introducing the name Shekinah Fellowship to Christendom.

My story, sort of.    
 No one showed up and and the comments section remained largely empty on this blog except for the spammers with their penny stocks and Viagra pitches etc.

What is Shekinah? 

Today Google says there are 281,000, Shekinah Fellowship results when searching for that name on the net. That is truly impressive don't you think?

The first site to appear with a slight mention of Shekinah Fellowships "choir" was Susan Dixon's website. I got excited about that and contacted her, she was at least acknowledging the existence of Shekinah Fellowships Choir.. Back in those days it was still taboo to even mention Brant Baker or Lonnie Frisbee's name. Bless Susan for being the first person bold enough to stand up against the current and take a stand.

Susan seemed ambivalent and had nothing much to share about Shekinah Fellowship or Brant Baker when I emailed her. Jim Ewing contacted her with much the same results.

Today she is not ashamed to acknowledge Brant Baker or Shekinah Fellowship. I would like to think that this blog had played a part in the open dialog about these things to where people are now free to mention Shekinah Fellowship or Brant Baker. I wanted to restore them to the historical public record and have achieved my goal in a sense.

Hannelore  (Lori W) showed up. Calvin showed up. And I started to receive emails from around the world. I started getting around 200 page views per day back then. I guess because i was breaking new ground in outing the something that others were trying to bury away and forget about, I don't really know.

Today I only get about 20 page view hits on average per day. We have now become old news and now everyone knows about Shekinah Fellowship and Brant Baker.

Brant Baker was a fallen man with deep issues who over came self condemnation and did the best he could to point the way to Jesus Christ.

What do I think happened to Shekinah Fellowship?

Here is one story with a few errors that need correcting but a good overview of sorts. And here is a more accurate story. But the behind the scenes story has not been publicly told. I have heard from a few of the men who were involved with Brant Baker and their accounts. They all say that even though Brant had a double life he still had a passion for Jesus Christ and the things of God that was very inspirational. Most of them to this day still are walking with God because of Brant's influence on them. There was something unique about Brant that drew people to Christ.

Brant Baker And Calvary Chapel Of Costa Mesa

"I remember walking into that little church, of course that was before it grew. They didn't have that patio there. They just had a little side walk and it was dirty and they had old carpets out on the dirt lot.

They had not yet expanded, it was a small chapel, and it wasn't filled. But there was something that was filling it. Some one was filling it...I walked into that little church and I begin to feel this funny feeling. It was like molasses going through the air...I saw, I touched, and I realized the reality of Almighty God."

Brant Baker speaking at a service held at the Arlington Foursquare Church, 2085 California Ave, Riverside, California.

Brant Baker first encountered the fullness of the person called the Holy Spirit at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa CA. He desired that every single service at Shekinah Fellowship be like what he had experienced at Calvary Chapel. Filled with a person, the person of the Holy Spirit. Many a person gives testimony that they encountered the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit at a Shekinah Fellowship service.

Brant refused to walk out on the platform until he was certain that the Holy Spirit's presence had manifested in the service. The worship would continue as Brant spoke out through his microphone saying, "Worship Him, Adore Him, O how we love Him. We give you praise dear Jesus, we give You praise! Worship Him."

Brant said, "It's only to know, to yield, and to be yielded to the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. He is the only One that can testify of Jesus. Did you know that? I can tell you about a person, but I can't preach Christ, preach Jesus, without yielding to the Holy Spirit, that He would make Him become alive. His life touches and penetrates our lives.

I want with everything that is within me to be able to love Him with everything that is within this being...to love Him with all our heart. To love one another. Let's get back to the basics of what the Bible is talking about.

'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son' And Jesus said, 'As the Father has sent me, so I send you.' The same way, identical, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Assembly of God, Foursquare, everybody! Miracles happen because of the Love of God. Salvation happens because of the Love of God, it's the greatest miracle."

Ruach ha~Kodesh is the Hebrew term used for the Holy Spirit. In english it means "Spirit," "breath," and "wind." The idea comes across that the Holy Spirit is invisible and has "force." 

It is the manifestation of the invisible force of Him that lets us know the Holy Spirit is present in a sense. He cannot be seen with the eyes but he can be experienced or felt. He is the breath of life that entered the first man Adam. 

Jesus Christ said that His words were "spirit and life." Words cannot be seen but they can be heard and once Jesus words are heard and received they produce life in us. So is the Holy Spirit that cannot be seen. He is in the Words of Jesus Christ to us.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit.

Jesus Christ

 Wind cannot be seen just as the Holy Spirit cannot be seen and is invisible to the eyes, yet wind can be felt just as the Spirit can be felt when He is present among us. Likewise, wind is invisible, but you can see its effects when the strength of its force manifests. The same is true with the Holy Spirit.

The Shekinah Presence

God manifested a phenomenon in the wilderness of a large column of a cloud and a column of fire by night (Exod. 13:21-22). These visible materializations of God's presence were identified by Jewish sages as the Shekinah, a word not in our English Bibles but used to describe the tangible or visible menifestations of the Lord among us. 

God released at times visible manifestations among His people in the wilderness, and when it was seen by the people, it was linked to the tent in the wilderness. When it appeared at Solomon's temple, it was called the "glory of the Lord." Exodus 16:10; 40:34-35. In Hebrew the phrase Shekinah means, "He caused to dwell."

He rested and dwelt in the midst.

A fellowship where the Holy Spirit is has the fruit of the Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfullness, gentleness, self control. Against such there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23