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| May 2004 Issue of the Pneuma Informer |  | ||
In this issue:
What's New at www.PneumaFoundation.org New Articles and other Features on the Pneuma Foundation Website:
Also, be sure to check out the "What's New" section on the Pneuma Foundation homepage. New articles and other features are being added regularly. Have a website you would like linked to the Pneuma Foundation? Write Webmaster Dave Driggs with your suggestion by using the Contacting Us page: Or use the on–line form to submit your suggestion. Recent Visitors: With new content being placed on the www.PneumaFoundation.org site all the time, it is becoming a resource to thousands of people from all over the world. Some of the recent international visitors to the Pneuma Foundation website have been from over 130 different nations and territories: Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Aruba, Turks and Caicos Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Dominica, Netherlands Antilles, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Columbia, Peru, Brazil, Mauritania, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Benin, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Gambia, Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Burundi, Rep. of Congo, Gabon, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Malawi, Seychelles, Togo, Botswana, South Africa, Bahrain, Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Libya, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Samoa, Guam, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Macao, Malaysia, Nepal, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Rep. Of Korea (South Korea), Cambodia, Mongolia, Taiwan, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Poland, Finland, Norway, Faroe Islands, Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Latvia, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Serbia, Malta, Gibraltar, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Belgium, United Kingdom (Great Britain), Ireland, Switzerland, and France. Come visit soon. Write to the Pneuma Informer editor with any comments or questions you have about the website or this newsletter by visiting the Contacting Us page. Reports from Around the World Nigeria: Who is king of the jujus? Many Africans are animists, which means they worship spirits. They believe spirits live in animals, trees, rocks, buildings, and other places. Some animist leaders are magicians who are able to demonstrate supernatural powers attributed to evil spirits. In Nigeria, they call this juju. National missionaries are actively demonstrating that the Holy Spirit of God is more powerful than the spirits in which juju followers believe. One town with a population of about 3,000 recently saw several Juju priests openly denounce their spirits and embrace Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Their central hall, formerly used for juju worship, has been dedicated to Christ and now serves as a church building. Some 625 people from the community joined in praise and worship there recently. Local Nigerian missionaries have been asked to set up a living church in this community and workers are now engaged in daily evangelization. They move from house to house, counseling residents and answering their questions, teaching scripture, and leading individuals and entire families to God. House–care fellowships are being formed. A town that was formerly known for its pagan practices is now an outpost of Christ's kingdom. Source: http://www.christianaid.org/insider/insider-5-10.asp#2 USA: Soldiers becoming Christians U.S. soldiers are reportedly becoming Christians during the deadliest period in Iraq since the war began more than a year ago. A recent article, featuring the headline "Marines Find Faith Amid the Fire," The Los Angeles Times reported that four soldiers asked a Protestant chaplain to arrange a battlefield baptism last Wednesday in the courtyard of a bullet–riddled school that they used in their fight with insurgents in Fallujah. "I've been talking to God a lot during the last two firefights," Lance Cpl. Chris Hankins, 19, said. "I decided to start my life over and make it better." Sgt. Andrew Jones, 25, said he had been considering getting baptized before he left for Iraq, but his combat experiences convinced him that the time was right. "With everything that has happened here, all the good friends I've lost, I thought it was a good place to be reborn," Jones said. Two Marines died and several were injured in the same courtyard when a mortar round landed among their group April 12. On April 26, another Marine was killed and 15 were wounded in Fallujah. During the baptism two dozen Marines stood quietly, the LA Times reported. Battlefield baptisms are not unusual among front–line troops, said Navy Lt. Scott Radetski, the chaplain who performed the baptisms. So many service personnel in Iraq request to be baptized that the military even has a two–page sheet on how to create a battlefield baptismal font, called the Field Immersion Baptismal Liner Instructions. Radetski said he performed one ceremony in Kuwait when Marines were waiting to move into Iraq. Three Marines at another encampment in Fallujah also have asked to be baptized. "When chaos shows its head," Radetski said, "we need an anchor for our faith. You need that rock that God promises to be." Since March 19, 2003, more than 725 soldiers have been killed and 4,151 wounded, the Associated Press reported (as of 5/4/2004 report). Combat operations have resulted in at least 509 deaths. Last month resulted in the largest number of monthly deaths with more than 110. Most of the combat has centered near Fallujah and Najaf. In a special report by Chaplain James F. Linzey, he writes that: "Approximately 20% of US military personnel—Army, Air Force, and Navy—are now Pentecostal or Charismatic. Iraqis come to the fences of the US military compounds in the dead of night quietly begging for Bibles. US military personnel, though forbidden to give them anything, throw New Testaments over the fence, as the US personnel are the only sources of scripture for many Iraqis." Source: CharismaNOW http://www.charismanow.com/a.php?ArticleID=9003 Used with permission. Email from James F. Linzey, D.D., Chaplain (MAJOR), USA, President, Operation Freedom China: fulfilling the Great Commission Napoleon once said, "When China is moved it will change the face of the globe." In this generation, that may indeed take place. A vision for spreading the good news of Jesus has captivated millions of Christians in China. House church leaders are already beginning to send a 100,000 strong "tithe" of their estimated 1 million full–time pastors and evangelists into foreign mission work. Expecting to face persecution, including martyrdom, evangelists and Christian workers are looking to go where Western Christians seldom can—across the borders of China into the Islamic and Buddhist world. In a recent interview with Paul Hattaway, author of Back to Jerusalem: Called to Complete the Great Commission, he says that the humility, love, and tenacity of these Christians is real and can be seen in how they live. "There are hundreds of pastors in prison today. Yet they don't see it as a satanic attack when they are tortured and put into prison. They see it as God's training ground, and God's furnace of affliction to purify them so they can be effective witnesses. The Chinese are in a position to send workers who have been through the furnace for so long that they're willing literally to die for the gospel." Asked if Chinese church leaders see miracles as central to their witness, Hattaway responded: "They don't see miracles as essential to their work; they see them as a natural reaction to preaching the gospel. Even in the house churches, there are many different groups and beliefs. But generally speaking, the Chinese don't focus on miracles at all. They focus on proclaiming the gospel to the lost. And when they proclaim the gospel to the lost, they find the Lord backing up his word with miracles frequently. "They believe that miracles are not for inside the church but for those who lack faith out on the street. One brother is often challenged with the question, 'Why don't we see miracles in the West like you do in China?' These days he's come to ask, 'Are you really proclaiming the gospel for the lost humanity of the world?'" For more information, visit: www.backtojerusalem.com Source: "A Captivating Vision" Christianity Today (Apr 2004), p. 84–86. USA: African Churches "Reshape Worship" in New York City More than 100 African churches, many of them Pentecostal, have spread across New York City, where pastors preach the gospel in languages such as Ibo, Twi and Ga. According to a report last weekend by The New York Times, "an explosion of African immigrant churches in the past 15 years has helped reshape religious worship in the city." "The surge is creating oases of Christian faith for newcomers from Nigeria, Ghana, Congo, Ethiopia and other countries and fueling an evangelical movement long the province of Latinos and African–Americans," the newspaper observed. Tony Carnes, a sociologist of religion and a co–editor of "New York Glory: Religions in the City," said: "They're having an impact beyond the African church. The African churches are bringing new vitality and new ways of doing things to African–American and other churches." Denominations have been multiplying. Founded in Benin but with a largely Nigerian membership, the Celestial Church of Christ lists 12 New York City branches on its Web site. Its roots planted by Swiss missionaries 175 years ago, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana has congregations in Harlem and Brooklyn. But the most rapid expansion has come from Pentecostal and evangelical Christianity, which has surged in Africa and other parts of the developing world. For example, the Redeemed Christian Church of God (http://www.rccg.org), a global Pentecostal movement based in Nigeria, came to New York City in 1995 and now has 14 branches, said Nimi Wariboko, pastor of a congregation in Brooklyn. The African churches, though, are trying to reach beyond ethnic borders. "We also need to attract much more of the Americans," said Albert Amoah, an apostle and leader of the Church of the Pentecost in the United States, The New York Times reported. "The church is universal. The kingdom is transcultural, transethnic." Source: CharismaNOW http://www.charismanow.com/a.php?ArticleID=8930 Used with permission. Other News and Headlines: Visit /links.jsp for Current News and Links
Report the News We are looking for stories about what God is doing in the world, reports about the persecution of Christians, and information about significant trends and ministry opportunities. If you have a news item to report, please send an email to the Informer /contactus.jsp.
Resources You Can Use Sermons and Audio Teachings
If there is another resource offering video, audio, or even printed sermons online, please send information to us. Thoughts to Ponder "Your worthiness gives you no help, and your unworthiness does not harm you. As one drop of water is as compared to the great ocean, so are my sins as compared with God's incomprehensible grace in Christ." "When you go around in silence, when you pray, ask yourself: 'Is there in my experience a living God, as concrete, as real as my friends, my relatives, some–one and not some–thing, not a power but a real person?' The word 'God' comes from an ancient gothic word that means 'One before whom one falls in adoration.' That is the primeval experience of human kind about God; it is not someone about whom one has heard. The first people who spoke of God spoke of a presence, a reality that at a certain moment had overwhelmed them by its glory, its splendor, its concreteness." "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will." "The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls" "We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer." "We can condemn the world and hope God gets us out of here before it burns, or we can take the more dangerous route and stick it out here and learn to love sinners—seeing in them our own forgivability and loving them unconditionally, the way we are loved by God through Christ." Excerpts from the Spring 2004 issue of the Pneuma Review The Pneuma Review is a quarterly printed journal of ministry resources and theology for Pentecostal and charismatic ministries and leaders. For more information about the Pneuma Review, and to learn how to subscribe, click here. From "The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Effects" By J. Rodman Williams, Part 1 of 2. . . . The book of Acts is the record of a church intensely aware of the presence of God. When the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch meet together, the Holy Spirit is markedly present—"While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them'" (Acts 13:2). When the apostles and elders of the church in Jerusalem convene to make a decision about the matter of Gentile circumcision, they send a letter which includes the words: "it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden" (Acts 15:28). Throughout, it is a church—whether in Jerusalem, Antioch, or elsewhere—moving and acting in the reality of God's spiritual presence. The book of Acts, accordingly, is far more than the acts of men—or "Acts of the Apostles."3 For though men are everywhere involved, it is basically the acts of God, of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Spirit that stand forth. God is present in a compelling manner; the sense of His presence and action is markedly known and experienced. All that happens finds its source and direction from Him. That God is real is the basic fact in the life of the early Christian community. Now what has been said about the experienced reality of God in the early church is again being confirmed in the contemporary movement of the Holy Spirit. A spiritual breakthrough is occurring wherein people are being made profoundly aware of the divine presence. Through the outpoured gift of the Holy Spirit, God in His divine reality is manifesting Himself. That God is real is being affirmed by countless thousands, not as simply an affirmation of distant faith, but of vivid, undeniable experience. . . .
From "Rightly Understanding God's Word: Whole Book Context." Part 2 of 2 by Craig S. Keener 8. The Spirit–baptized life in Mk 1:8–13 The Gospel of Mark explicitly mentions God's Spirit only six times, but half of them appear in his introduction (1:8–13), where he introduces several of his central themes for his audience. His other uses emphasize the Spirit's work in empowering Jesus for exorcism (Mk 3:29–30), Old Testament prophets to speak God's message (12:26) or Jesus' witnesses to speak his message (13:11). In the introduction, John the Baptist announces the mighty one who will baptize others in the Holy Spirit (1:8); this Spirit–baptizer is Jesus of Nazareth. Immediately after this announcement, we see Jesus baptized and the Spirit coming on him (1:9–10). The Spirit–baptizer thus gives us a model of what the Spirit–baptized life will look like, for he himself receives the Spirit first. That is why what the Spirit does next appears all the more stunning: the Spirit thrusts Jesus into the wilderness for conflict with the devil (1:12–13). The Spirit–filled life is not a life of ease and comfort, but of conflict with the devil's forces! The rest of the Gospel of Mark continues this pattern. Shortly after Jesus emerges from the wilderness, he must confront an evil spirit in a religious gathering (1:21–27). Throughout the rest of the Gospel, Jesus continues to defeat the devil by healing the sick and driving out demons (cf. 3:27), while the devil continues to strike at Jesus through the devil's religious and political agents. In the end, the devil manages to get Jesus killed—but Jesus triumphs by rising from the dead. In the same way, Jesus expects his disciples to heal the sick and drive out demons (3:14–15; 4:40; 6:13; 9:19, 28–29; 11:22–24), and also to join him in suffering (8:34–38; 10:29–31, 38–40; 13:9–13). His disciples seemed happier to share his triumphs than his sufferings, but the Gospel of Mark emphasizes that we cannot share his glory without also sharing his suffering. That lesson remains as relevant for modern disciples as for ancient ones! . . .
Periodical Review: "Practicing What We Preach" Jack W. Hayford. Ministries Today (Nov/Dec 2003), pages 22–27. Jack Hayford sees the church in a moral crisis. "Favoritism, greed, shoddy morals and shady ethics have found a comfortable home in the church. At the same time, both inside and outside the church there is a rise in intolerance towards leaders who have been allowed to compromise with impunity their various institutions' self–declared moral and ethical standards" (pg. 22). Despite this laudable intolerance the evangelical church, with its many denominational and independent groups, has no unified voice when in comes to confronting unethical leaders. " . . . there has been no standard policy guiding the body of Christ as it deals with its mavericks—the small but growing number of leaders who make their own rules and flaunt the ethical demands of a disciple of Jesus Christ" (pg. 22). It is in this context that he proposes a solution: " . . . I want to propose the establishment of an International Council for Ethical Accountability (ICEA)—or something with another title, but serving the church with what those words represent . . . Such a council could provide a starting place for an internationally agreed–on standard concerning basic ethical and moral issues as they pertain to church leadership" (pg. 23). Hayford believes that such a council would allow the church to express a "collective voice" when responding to leadership failings: "While any one of a field of leaders may answer a reporter's question . . . without a broad consensus, the public is left with the notion that every spiritual leader is basically a law unto themselves" (pg. 24). Noting that luxury and extravagance has replaced self denial in many places (pg. 24), and that he has had to quietly withdraw from participation in two ministries because of their "law unto myself" attitudes (pg. 24), Hayford sees the need for judgment to come from within the church, lest it come from outside (pg. 27). "This isn't a proposal for doctrinal agreement beyond basics, or for ecclesiastical or liturgical conformity. But written on all our hearts is a set of ethical principles that we intuitively know are right, and God's word affirms a fundamental body of moral expectations that we all affirm. So the question is, do we believe that it possible that we can find a consensus on how we can strengthen one another by speaking with one voice where ethics are involved?" (pg. 27) Hayford believes the answer is "yes." How many others feel the same is yet to be seen. I look forward to seeing the responses to his proposal from evangelicals in the United States and abroad. Reviewed by Mike Dies Prayer Requests
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