REAL CHURCH CRISIS

 2/1/2013 Steve Strang

Do you sense a depression in the body of Christ in America, as if something is badly wrong? We’re losing influence within our culture as the anti-Christian sentiment grows, yet you’d never know it in most churches—the smoke, lights, loud music and preaching rolls on as if all is well.

The situation is exacerbated by this simple fact: We don’t have our act together in the body of Christ. Too often people come to the church, are deeply disappointed and as a result are turned off from the gospel. The church promises solutions but only offers lip service. We’ve become excellent at giving people a show on Sunday but lousy at showing them how to actually live. In fact, most church members are as bound up as those in the world—they’re in financial bondage, struggling with addictions and their families are in disarray.

This includes leaders in the church. I believe, as John Maxwell says, that everything rises and falls based on leadership. So allow me to address the leadership situation within the charismatic community.

Charismatic churches and ministries typically grow when leaders are passionate and have a vision. It doesn’t matter if they have seminary degrees; if they can preach the gospel and if people gravitate to them, they suddenly have a growing church! Anointing is more important than academics. That’s partly why our churches are growing while other areas of the body aren’t.

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KINGDOM LEADERSHIP vs. CHURCH LEADERSHIP

Joseph Mattera

There is presently a revolution taking place among those on the leading edge of change in the evangelical church. The result is a transition from a church mindset to a kingdom mindset in which the walls of church buildings are no longer able to contain the raw creative energy of Christ-followers who are committed to preaching and applying the Gospel of the Kingdom to all the world, including its systems and structures.

As political solutions and big government attempts to heal our land fail miserably, more people will look to faith-based partnerships and churches to find solutions. Hence the irrelevancy of old church patterns and traditions will become more noticeable in the decades to come.

Consequently, it behooves us to continue to study the contrasts between leading-edge kingdom practices and old, irrelevant religious church patterns that have failed to effectively evangelize and transform communities with the gospel.

The following is a contrast between leaders with a kingdom mindset and those with a church mindset.

I. Kingdom leaders interpret Matthew 28:19-20 as referring to discipling all nations. Church leaders believe it only refers to all individual ethnic peoples.

The body of Christ is now re-thinking the Great Commission scriptures of Mark 16:15 and Matthew 28:19-20. Instead of viewing them as commands to merely evangelize individual souls, now many are viewing the command in Mark 16 to ‘go into all the world and preach’ as a command to apply the gospel to both individual sinners and world systems. Matthew 28:19-20 is now regarded as the New Testament equivalent to the Cultural Mandate found in Genesis 1:28.

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Rick Warren Calls ‘The Bible’ Series the Best He’s Ever Seen

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter – March 1, 2013

Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California commented on the much-anticipated “The Bible” TV series, which premiers on the History Channel on Sunday, saying it is by far the best Bible movie he has ever seen.

“I have seen probably every film made on the Bible in the last 50 years. This is by far the best one,” Warren said, giving top marks to the 10-hour series, which will air each Sunday until Easter, March 30.

The best-selling author has been eagerly promoting the upcoming project, created by TV producers Mark Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey. On Saturday, the California pastor will air a 90-minute simulcast featuring a behind-the-scenes look at the production of “The Bible.”

“One way to build a bridge between God’s Word and the issues of our day is to tie a sermon series into some cultural event, something that has already caught the attention of many people,” Warren stated.

“For instance, when we enter the current economic crisis, I preached a series on God’s principles for money management. It taught people that the Bible offers wise and practical advice on how to handle your finances.”

The project, which was filmed in Morocco, covers hundreds of years of history, beginning with the story of Isaac’s sacrifice in the Old Testament, and ending with the crucifixion of Christ. Other major events that will be covered in the show include Samson destroying the pagan Philistine temple and David’s fight with the giant Goliath.

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The Age full page article on RUAP, including front page coverage, personal interview and photo of National President Daniel Nalliah

You may click on both photos to see The Age hard copy full page presentation of RUAP, including front page coverage, personal interview and photo of National President Daniel Nalliah.…

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God’s Love Message Is the Sweetest Gift of All

2/11/2013 Sandra Clifton, D. Min.

“What are you thinking?” I asked my husband, Terry, who was staring at the lineup of 15 throwaway cameras that graced our kitchen counter.

“Valentine’s Day,” Terry answered.

You’re not married for 26 years without getting a glimmer of your spouse’s next thought. So I revealed it to him: “I know—you were going to find a photo of us from these and frame it!”

“Right; how did you know?” Then Terry added with an ornery smile, “What you didn’t know is that I bought a special frame to hold it. It says, ‘BE MINE!’”

We surveyed the cavalcade of cameras and tried to guess what special moments were on each one. In all these pictures there were probably 10 good photos of us smiling as a couple but 1,001cute cat photos! (Did I tell you we have two spoiled cats, Sammy and Barnie, who are naturals on camera?) Terry and I began to wonder which of the 15 cameras contained that one good photo of us.

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The West’s Shameful Demonization of Israel

February 4, 2013 – By Bruce Thornton of Frontpage Magazine

After watching Chuck Hagel’s embarrassing performance in his confirmation hearings, I can’t decide if he’s a bigot, a paleocon isolationist, or just plain stupid. I suspect the latter, given his statement, “If confirmed, I intend to know a lot more than I do.” More significant is the fact that he was nominated at all, given his record of gaffes, his use of anti-Semitic tropes like “Jewish lobby” (used only once “on the record,” he assures us!), his indulgence of the genocidal Iranian regime and its nuclear arms ambitions, and his endorsement of American guilt and global retreat.

But the most important dimension of Hagel’s foreign policy beliefs is his obvious distaste for Israel, evident in a catalogue of public statements over the past decade. He has consistently indulged the specious moral equivalence that refuses to acknowledge Arab hatred of Israel and Palestinian terrorist violence as the root causes of the conflict, refused to support condemnations of Palestinian terrorism and terrorist organizations, blamed Israel for lack of progress in the so-called “peace process,” and decried the malign influence of the “Jewish lobby” on American foreign policy. Yet all these positions are ones with which Obama is comfortable. That’s why he nominated such an unprepared, inexperienced blowhard to run the Pentagon.

Obama’s hostile attitude towards Israel, though, is part of a much larger phenomenon: the decades-long demonization of Israel by Western democracies far in excess of any condemnations of the slaughter, ethnic cleansing, torture, invasions, and occupations that have marred the 65 years Israel has fought to survive against a surrounding fanatic enemy whose collective population outnumbers hers 30 to 1.

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Please Don’t Worship the iPreacher

Charisma News J. Lee Grady – 12/12/2012

The iPreacher is not a new phenomenon. In another era he (or she) would have been called a televangelist.

Thanks to amazing advancements in digital technology, pastors today can reach massive audiences. Their sermons can become overnight YouTube sensations. Some of our most gifted Christian communicators touch millions through their downloadable sermons. Others broadcast their messages to multi-site locations so that their reach is multiplied to 10 or 20 congregations instead of one.

I’m not complaining about this. I love the fact that this column (which started out as a page in a paper magazine) is now able to travel to the other side of the world in seconds. I’m glad I can preach the gospel through Twitter and Facebook. God wants us to use modern technology.

But as much as I love my iPad, and as much as I welcome all the rapid changes occurring in communications, I’m concerned about the emergence of the iPreacher.

The iPreacher is not a new phenomenon. In another era he (or she) would have been called a televangelist. But televangelists today are considered as outdated as three-piece suits and Brylcreem. Today’s celebrated communicator may still be on television, but his design is updated. His hairstyle is cool, he has a few days’ stubble on his face and his ministry has an app for your smartphone.

Please hear me. I’m not against hair gel, stubble or the latest app. Yet new technology and youthful trendiness can breed pride if we’re not careful. And pride is still pride, whether it is clothed in yesterday’s polyester or today’s distressed denim. Just as the most popular televangelists failed morally in the 1980s, we are bound to see today’s iPreachers fall if we repeat the mistakes of the past.

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March for Life Counters Lack of News Coverage With Social Media

By Alex Murashko , Christian Post Reporter – January 26, 2013

Participants in this year’s March for Life, marking the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, seemed less bothered by the mainstream media’s lack of coverage of the estimated half-million people descending on Washington, D.C. to demonstrate against abortion on Friday. That’s because they relied heavily on social media to help shine the spotlight on the movement.

Outside the march, supporters of the pro-life movement were not deterred either. Pope Benedict XVI gave a shout-out on Twitter in nine languages. “I join all those marching for life from afar, and pray that political leaders will protect the unborn and promote a culture of life,” Benedict tweeted. The Pope has 2.5 million followers on Twitter in just six-week time since he began using the social media heavyweight.

“We have the biggest social media movement online for the pro-life movement educating almost a million people a week with the truth about human life and abortion,” Lila Rose of Action Network, a pro-life investigative journalism group, told Fox News. “Our Facebook at over 430,000 is bigger than Planned Parenthood’s Facebook and they’re a billion dollar abortion chain.”

While TV reports on the march were scarce, a quick Google search Friday evening showed minimal mainstream online media coverage as well. The news of Burt Reynold’s bout with the flu that landed him in the hospital took the top-center slot at CNN.com, while the March for Life story was nowhere to be found on its homepage.

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Jesus Would Tell Lance Armstrong to ‘Stop Lying and Turn to God?’

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter – January 21, 2013

Pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, delivered his latest sermon in the “What Would Jesus Say To…” series over the weekend and offered that Christ would tell disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong to stop running away from the truth, to stop lying and turn to God.

According to Pastor Young, Jesus would turn to Armstrong in a one-on-one conversation and say: “Lance, fall on your knees before me. Stop your paddling. Stop your performing. Stop trying to hear those words you didn’t hear when you were young. Stop compromising. Stop trying to be the god of your life. You’re out of control. Your life is a wreck; your life is a mess.”

Armstrong, who overcome cancer and won seven Tour de France titles, which made him one of the most successful athletes in the world, confessed to Oprah Winfrey last week in a much anticipated interview that he had been using illegal performance enhancing drugs his entire career.

The cyclist effectively admitted that he had falsely accused people of lying when they suggested that he had been doping, and that he had been taking the exact substances the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency accused of him using. After finally losing the legal battle against the ADA last year, Armstrong was stripped of all his Tour de France titles, he was banned from the sport for life, and has lost millions in sponsorship deals.

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A Prophetic Word for 2013: Return to Antioch

Prophetic Insight from Charisma – Jennifer LeClaire – 09/01/2013

Charisma News Editor Jennifer LeClaire is sounding the alarm with a clear prophetic directive to leave behind the Hollywood Christianity, the pillow prophets, the prosper-me gospel.

I was taking a long drive from South Florida to Orlando, praying in the Spirit, and asking the Lord to reveal some prophetic direction for 2013. I must have prayed in the Spirit for two hours before I heard these three words: “Return to Antioch.”

With a long, dark stretch of highway still in front of me, I could not readily dive into Scripture to seek understanding about what the Holy Spirit was trying to tell me. So I continued praying in the Spirit and meditating on those three words: “Return to Antioch.”

When I opened my Bible to Acts 14, prophetic revelation for the body of Christ—particularly the leadership of the body of Christ—began to unfold:

When Paul and Barnabas were serving together in the mission fields, they made a return visit to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch. With the return to Antioch, they had a clear mandate: to “strengthen the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God’” (Acts 14:22).

I like how the Amplified Bible draws out this verse: “Establishing and strengthening the souls and the hearts of the disciples, urging and warning and encouraging them to stand firm in the faith, and [telling them] that it is through many hardships and tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

And the Message Bible puts it this way: “putting muscle and sinew in the lives of the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn’t be easy: ‘Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times’.”

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Why President Obama Does Not Defend Persecuted Christians – By Egyptian Christian Author

By MidEast Christian News – January 13, 2013

Writing in the monthly conservative Townhall Magazine, Michael Youssef has asked why President Obama, a self-proclaimed Christian, has failed to defend the cause of the harassed and persecuted Christians around the world.

Dr. Michael Youssef, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen who has authored 27 books including ‘Blindsided: The Radical Islamic Conquest,’ examines Obama’s dealings with Egypt over the past two years.

In his article, Youssef suggests a number of factors that could explain Obama’s position regarding Christians around the world. He says that on the outbreak of the January 2011 uprising, Obama urged Mubarak to step down. In fact, writes Youssef, Mubarak was a secular and capitalist dictator and his regime was corrupt for sure. However even after Mubarak’s departure, the situation has not changed and corruption is still present under what Youssef calls “the Islamic dictator who replaced Mubarak.”

The presidential elections (May 2012) ended by a narrow victory for Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate. Even though the presidential elections were allegedly marred by fraud and Christians reportedly prevented from voting, Youssef says that the White House and the U.S. State Department were quick to “embrace Morsi as the victor.”

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International Evangelist Milton Alvarez at CTFM Hallam at 9:30am & 6:30pm services Sun 3rd March

Dear friends and family in Christ,

For those of you in the Melbourne area, we’re pleased to announce that Evangelist Milton Story from Anchor of Salvation International Ministries will be ministering in Holy Spirit miracle healing revival meetings at CTFM at 23 Melverton Dr in Hallam (Melbourne) at our Sunday worship services at 9:30am & 6:30pm on 3rd March.

Milton Alvarez has a heart for the nations, and is recognized as an ordained minister, evangelist, teacher, revivalist etc. He has been characterized as “radical and full of God’s anointing.” Milton  and his wife Eneida are both evangelists, with their son Josh (22), married, and ordained with his own congregation as a pastor with a large youth following.

Click the following link to watch more about his amazing testimony and ministry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbp5R5xzBJ0

Milton was gloriously saved in 1986,when he was about to kill himself, being totally dissatisfied with himself despite the riches,and worldly pleasures he had. With this thought, He went to his hotel bedroom in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

While he was changing clothes, he turned on the television. A preacher by the name of Nicky Cruz was talking, but the strange thing was that it seemed he was talking directly to Milton. He became angry and started to change to all other channels, but on each one, the same preacher appeared. He became scared, and turned -off TV, and walked out of the room. When he re-entered the room the T.V switched on by itself, with the preacher giving him a final message.

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‘Gun Culture’ — What About the ‘Fatherless Culture’?

By Larry Elder- Jewish World Review Jan. 17, 2013/ 6 Shevat, 5773

In 2012, President Barack Obama’s adopted hometown had 506 murders, including more than 60 children. Philadelphia, a city that local television newscasters frequently call ‘Killadelphia,” saw 331 killed last year. In Detroit, 386 people were murdered. The face of gun violence is not Sandy Hook. It is Chicago.

Since 1966, there have been 90 school shootings in the U.S., with 231 fatalities. Yes, Sandy Hook shocked us. But the odds of a child being killed at a school shooting are longer than the odds of being struck by lightning.

Of the 11,000 to 12,000 gun murders each year, more than half involve both black killers and black victims, mostly in urban areas and mostly gang-related. The No. 1 cause of preventable death for young black men is not auto accidents or accidental drowning, but homicide.

Rapper/actor Ice T (“Cop Killer”) and I attended the same high school. In the 1991 John Singleton film “Boyz n the Hood,” the teenagers attend that school, and car-cruise the South Central Los Angeles boulevard after which the school is named.

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Alabama Supreme Court Declares A Fetus Is A Child

Jessica Pielko – January 18, 2013

Anti-choice activists are not simply trying to pass abortion restrictions through state legislatures, they are trying to expand existing criminal statutes to create multiple pathways for recognition of fetal rights. The latest example of this strategy comes courtesy of the Alabama Supreme Court and an opinion that held a fetus should be considered a child and therefore is protected under the state’s chemical endangerment law.

The ruling came as the court upheld the convictions of two women whose used illegal drugs while they were pregnant. The two women had been charged with chemically endangering their children in violation of an Alabama law that makes it a crime to expose a child to a controlled substance, a chemical substance such as precursors for manufacturing drugs or drug paraphernalia.

The cases are themselves tragic, even without the additional failure of the criminal justice system here. Hope Ankrom and her newborn son both tested positive for cocaine when the child was born on January 31, 2000. Medical records documented Ankrom’s substance abuse during her pregnancy but she was unable to break her addiction. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, which was suspended, and she was placed on probation for one year, according to the statement.

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Rick Warren Tells ‘Oprah’s Lifeclass’ to Listen to God, Read the Bible

Christian Post Entertainment – Jan 16, 2013

Saddleback Church Senior Pastor Rick Warren, making an appearance on the OWN network’s “Oprah’s Lifeclass,” assigned a “homework assignment” to the audience by telling them to open up the Bible and start reading the Book of John.

“You are a product of your past, but you are not a prisoner of your past. It has influence over you, but it’s just one of the cards,” Warren said on the episode that was aired on Jan. 13, adding that reading the Book of John can help people come to that realization.

While promoting the 10th anniversary of his best-selling non-fiction book, The Purpose Driven Life, Warren created an analogy between life and the card game of poker.

“The cards we are dealt are the things we don’t have control over. I didn’t choose where I was born, when I was born, I didn’t choose my gender, my parents, my race, my natural abilities, my natural weaknesses, but a wise player can even play what seems to be a weak hand, and win the game. There are ways to take what you are given and make the most out of it,” Warren continued.

Winfrey noted that many people spend their time complaining why they weren’t given a different hand in life, and Warren added that people need to accept the life they are given because each and every person is unique.

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