AG Centennial

SPECIAL ISSUE: RECOGNIZING THE HOLY SPIRIT
AUGUST 2014
LIFE IN THE SPIRIT
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you
and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
From the very beginning, I knew

we would do everything we
could to battle my cancer.
I firmly believe God led us to Cancer
Treatment Centers of America.
Life was good. Id gotten a big promotion at work, my daughter
was getting married, we had an awesome trip planned
then I received the news that I had pancreatic cancer.
My first response was to praythe second was to fight.
Friends from church recommended that I go to Cancer
Treatment Centers of America (CTCA).
In addition to outstanding medical care, we had a
spiritual connection with Pastor Gordon from the
very first moment we met. His faith was based on
the word of Godjust like ours. To know that
CTCA considers my faith just as important as the
medical care means the world to me.
The spiritual support I received gave me that extra
little bit of something it took to continue the
fightand its helped me concentrate on healing.
Sybil Redmon
Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer Patient
Montgomery, AL
If you or someone you love is fighting

complex or advanced stage cancer, call
us at 855.667.7675 or visit us online
at cancercenter.com/faith today.
Hospitals in:
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2014 Rising Tide
No case is typical. You should not expect to experience these results.
FEATURES
AUGUST 2014/V OLUME 40, NUMBER 1
SPECIAL ISSUE: RECOGNIZING THE HOLY SPIRIT
16
Cover Story
A Centennial Move of the Spirit

Its been 100 years since the Assemblies of God
emerged from the outpouring at Azusa Street.
Charismas founder reports on how the Holy Spirit
has moved through the worlds largest Pentecostal
denominationand what lies ahead.
By Steve Strang
COVER PHOTOS (clockwise from top right):

1) Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission on Azusa Street in
Los Angeles, where the three-year long revival birthed
the Pentecostal movement.
2) Alice and A.R. Farley, who pioneered many AG churches
in Kansas in a 40-year span, with their oldest grandson,
Charisma founder Steve Strang at age 2 before the
Assemblies 40th anniversary.
3) Current General Superintendent George O. Wood with
his wife, Jewel, before their honeymoon in 1965.
4) Ithiel Clements (seated), a respected Church of God in
Christ bishop, helped bridge racial divides by meeting in
1995 with former General Superintendent Thomas Trask
(far right) and other leaders.
5) Hillsong United, out of Sydneys Hillsong Church, draws
thousands of youth to its concerts and is emblematic
of the AGs future: one-third of all AG adherents are
25 or younger.
6) Early 1910s baptism scene near Springfield, Missouri,
where the Assemblies established its headquarters.
7) In the early 1970s Calvary Assembly of God in Orlando,
Florida, was one of many to welcome charismatics.
Charisma was birthed there in 1975.
F LO W E R P E N T E CO S TA L H E R I TAG E C E N T E R | H I L L S O N G M E D I A
14
Our Roots in the Assemblies
of God
How my personal journeyand that of
Charismahas been shaped by the AG
By Steve Strang
32
Marks of the Assemblies
What three elements not only characterize
the Assemblies of God, but also must remain
for future growth?
By George O. Wood
40
Convoy of Hopes Mission to

Feed One
48
Youre Not an Extra!
How you can join the movement to help

combat world hunger for just $10 a month
Have you relegated yourself to the sidelines in

the kingdom while others do the real work?
Heres the truth about Gods plans for you.
By Sarah Breed
By Jeff Kennedy
42
60
Are You a Friend of the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit isnt strange. Hes a wonderful,
kind and sensitive Personand heres how a
real friendship with Him can change your life.
By Robert Morris
When the Holy Ghost Moves on the

Big Screen
A new film from Darren Wilson highlights
Gods supernatural power onscreen. But its
the behind-the-scenes stories that indicates
another movement.
By Lisa Jones Townsel
CONTENTS
AUGUST 2014/V OLUME 40, NUMBER 1
D EPARTMENTS
Your Feedback 8
Inspire 10
Jack Frosts widow finds courage
to continue at Shiloh
AG missionary program for children
and teens makes major impact
68
Texas woman walks after four

years confined to wheelchair
Empower 68
This months resources: Guillermo
Maldonados Supernatural
Transformation, new Lecrae album,
faith and football, plus more
Reviews: Deliverance and Spiritual
Warfare Manual from John
Eckhardt, Bill Hybels Simplify, plus
interview with Christine Caine
Charisma Online 74
69
C OLUMNS
78 Fire in My Bones
7 practical things we can do to encourage
the freedom of Pentecost in church
By J. Lee Grady
11
Charisma (ISSN #0895-156X) is published monthly by Charisma Media, 600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, FL 32746. Periodicals postage paid at Lake Mary, FL 32746 and at additional entry offices.
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PRINTED IN THE USA
TRACY BENNETT | JOHNNA BRYNN PHOTOGRAPHY | MARY BOYD | BGMC
10
MATT STEELE - 1997 GRADUATE

Academy Award in the Animated Feature Film category for animation work on Frozen
CLAUDIA ORTEGA-HOGUE - 2000 GRADUATE

Alumna in International Business, has served as the Texas Director for Civic Engagement for the
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials since 2010
DON MOEN - ORU ASSOCIATION ALUMNUS

Honoree at the Gospel Music Associations Inaugural Honors Celebration
JP JONES - 2006 GRADUATE

Won a Bronze Stevie Award for Best Use of Customer Service in Technology
AARON KESLER - 2004 GRADUATE

Honored by the Oklahoma Society of Certified Public Accountants with a 2014 Trailblazers award
recognizing innovations, professional dedication and community commitment
DAVID OSBORNE - 1981 GRADUATE

2012 Los Angeles Music Awards Concert Pianist of the Year, and he played a tribute concert
for U.S. President Jimmy Carters 89th birthday
Join these accomplished

ORU alumni at quest.oru.edu/alumnisuccess
800.678.8876
Your Feedback
CHARISMA
LIFE IN THE SPIRIT
Founding Editor and Publisher STEVE STRANG

steve.strang@charismamedia.com
Chief Operating Officer JOY F. STRANG
Im grateful there
are Christians on
the frontlines ... still
unwilling to cower to
the godless agendas
dominating the
headlines today.
Herman Bolinger
Contributing Editor J. LEE GRADY

lee.grady@charismamedia.com
News Editor JENNIFER LECLAIRE

jennifer.leclaire@charismamedia.com
Associate Editor SHAWN A. AKERS

shawn.akers@charismamedia.com
Editorial Assistant SEAN ROBERTS

sean.roberts@charismamedia.com
Production Manager CARA S. SHOWERS

Art Director RALPH RAMIREZ JR.
Production Coodinator /
Graphic Designer
LINDA GILLOTTI
Advertising Manager ANN MARIE KELLY

amkelly@charismamedia.com
Advertising Sales TRAVIS HAMZIK
TODD STARNES ON THE FRONTLINES

God bless Todd Starnes for his willingness
to be a voice for biblical values in a time
when our nation needs to be reminded of
its godly foundation (The Patriot With a
Microphone by Ken Walker, June). Im sure
he faces a lot of criticism, but Im grateful there are Christians on the frontlines
in secular media still unwilling to cower
to the godless agendas dominating the
headlines today.
Herman Bolinger, Owensboro, Kentucky
for course correction for too many. It will

take a radical St. Augustine-type conversion process to save those souls.
Miriam Hess, Union, Oregon
SINGLES AND SEXUALITY
OUR PAGES WERE TOO SEDUCTIVE?!

Could it be that men have been so
ridiculed into silence by women who want
to be beautiful or in style (spelled s-e-x-y
today) that you will no longer speak up?
Or is it merely that your eyes have become
so accustomed to those who flaunt their
bodies on TV? I could take the June issue
much more seriously after I cut out all
the pictures of women in your magazine
whove succumbed to this mentality. How
about more articles on celibacy and purity
for those who remain abstinent for the
kingdoms sake? After spending several
years in an Amish community, my eyes
have changed. Unfortunately, it is too late
I commend J. Lee Grady for having the

guts to write about the disturbing matter of pastors treating their churches like
business propositions and going out of
their way to keep it in the family (5 Way
to Avoid Another Embarrassing Ministry
Scandal, May). Ive seen this time and time
again, both on TV and locallywhere sons
and daughters take over or are trained to
take over when the pastor retires, even
when there is absolutely no anointing to
do soand it becomes all about money.
Dianne Sheridan, Turlock, California
FAMILY BUSINESS
HOW TO CONNECT WITH US:
Phone 407-333-0600
Mail Charisma
600 Rinehart Road
Lake Mary, FL 32746
Email charisma@charismamedia.com
CHARISMA | August 2014
michael.johnson@charismamedia.com
Media Ad Traffic Supervisor ERICA HEITZ

erica.heitz@charismamedia.com
Kenny Lucks Sexual Atheism and the

Christian Single (June) highlights how
professing or self-described Christians are
becoming more liberal in their views on
sex. Thats because churches dont discuss
it enough. Single Christians are left to go
to the world to learn about it.
Jamiel Cotman, via Internet
travis.hamzik@charismamedia.com
Advertising Sales MICHAEL JOHNSON
Web charismamag.com
Dir. of Audience Development DAVID MANNING

david.manning@charismamedia.com
Customer Service NETTIE PARKS

nettie.parks@charismamedia.com
EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES:

600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, FL 32746
Phone: 407-333-0600 Fax: 407-333-7100
Email: charisma@charismamedia.com
Website: charismamag.com
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
P.O. Box 6102, Harlan, IA 51593-1602.
SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: 12 issues $24.97;
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issues, experienced billing problems, want to
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call 1-800-829-3346. To subscribe, go online to
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ADVERTISING POLICY: We make every effort
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MAILING LIST: We make a portion of our mailing list
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SEU.edu
Lakeland, Florida | 800.500.8760
Facebook.com/seuniversity
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YouTube.com/watchSEU
Inspire
AMAZING STORIES. REAL PEOPLE.
Trisha Frost continues to

administer the Fathers healing
love to leaders nationwide
AFTER HER husband, beloved Bible teacher and author Jack Frost, lost his battle with cancer at just 54 years old, Trisha Frost
heard whispersand louder murmursof people around her saying shed never survive without him. They thought Id dry up and
die, says Frost, who in 1991 founded Shiloh Place Ministries in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with her husband to restore and
revive leaders.
Instead she found hope in a God who gave her the courage to live. You have to make choices to move forward or you get stuck,
says Frost, who confronted what she calls an orphan mindseta result of feelings of abandonment experienced as a child or adult.
Everybody has pain. Everybody has disappointment. But if were not careful, we begin to believe the lies that this wound would try
to tell us.
At Shiloh Place Ministries, Frost helps men and women find freedom and healing by experiencing the love of a Father who cares
for us as His sons and daughters. Through her husbands books, which include Experiencing the Fathers Embrace; her own book,
Unbound: Breaking Free of Lifes Entanglements; seminars; and reformation schools, Frost is touching the lives of the brokenhearted
something many didnt believe she could do seven years ago when her husband passed away.
We have no clue the full measure of the grace of God until we are in crises, she says. Dont allow the circumstances of woundedness or the pain of your past dictate your future and cause you to live in hopelessness. Make the choice of courage so your
consequences will leave a legacy. Sarah Breed
10
char ismamag.com
JOHNNA BRYNN PHOTOGRAPHY
Jack Frosts Widow Finds Courage to Continue at Shiloh
I N T E R N AT I O N A L S O C I E T Y O F M I S S I O N A RY K I D S
A Child Will Lead the Way ... to the Mission Field

DESPITE MORE
than 2,700 missionaries sent from the
United States at the
time, the Assemblies
of God never had
anyone in a single
Eastern European
state until a couples
then-6-year-old son
came home from a
Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge
(BGMC) meeting with
exciting news.
I just felt this
tugging at my heart,
and I heard a voice
inside say, Thats it;
thats where youre
going, the young
boy told them.
If it werent for
BGMC highlighting
this country in its
curriculum, we might
not be here today,
says the missionary,
whose name cant be
disclosed because of
the sensitive location
in which they now
work. God spoke to
us through the words
of a child.
Marking its 65th
anniversary this year,
BGMC is the AGs missions education program for children 12
and under. And since
its launch in October
1949, it continues to
instill a missionary
vision in children
around the country.
char ismamag.com
In fact, Mark
Entzminger, senior
director of childrens
ministries, thinks this
initiative deserves
credit for the Pentecostal groups status
as one of the few
denominations still
expanding (3.1 million U.S. members
and almost 68 million
in other nations.)
I would tie our
worldwide growth
to our forefathers
ensuring that
taking the gospel
to the ends of the
earth was part of
our [childrens]
lives throughout
their lives,
Entzminger says.
Children and
parents contribute
$6 million annually
to missions through
Buddy Barrels
named for the BGMC
mascotand other
oferings. When they
mature into teens,
many continue in
the AGs Speed the
Light program, where
oferings total $9 million a year.
The teen program
includes Ambassadors in Missions
(AIM), which last year
dispatched 1,865 students on short-term
mission trips. This
summer AIM led trips
to Bogota, Colombia,
and Vienna, Austria,
with its current mission in Columbus,
Ohio, wrapping up
Aug. 1.
Entzminger says
the most inspiring
element of BGMC
is how its teaching
helps children
recognize material
blessings arent for
buying things to
amuse themselves,
but instead to help
spread the gospel
and bless lessfortunate peoples.
In some
situations people
need to have their
needs met before
they can hear the
gospel, he says.
Its about meeting
felt needs and
spiritual needs.
Ken Walker
QUOTABLE
People need to
be able to look
around the average
congregation and
say, You know
what, most of these
people will have
strong and happy
marriages for a
lifetime. Doing
what God says
matters. This is a
big deal to know.
Shaunti Feldhahn,
after debunking the myth
that half of Americas
marriagesincluding
those among Christians
end in divorce. The author
found that only 15 to
20 percent of couples
regularly attending
church actually divorce.
Young missionaries participate

in a Kings Castle Ministries
program in Nicaragua
August 2014 | CHARISMA
11
Inspire
AMAZING STORIES. REAL PEOPLE.
Joining Forces for Christ Through Social Networking

RYAN WHITMANS
decision to follow Christ in
college came with an overwhelming desire to change
social network that connects

people with opportunities to
support already existing organizations, ministries, churches
Ryan Whitman (in yellow shirt)

leads a network devoted to
linking others for ministry
the world. An entrepreneur

at heart, in 2011 Whitman
founded Join The Effort
what is now a philanthropic
and nonprofits.
At first, Whitman focused
on just a few organizations, recruiting others to
participate in volunteer events

such as raising money for
an orphanage in India and
cleaning the warehouse of a
local ministry that helps victims of the sex industry.
However, Whitman soon
realized that Join The Effort,
though successful, could have
a greater impact by designing
a website like Facebook and
Twitter where people and
organizations could interact
for the purpose of making a
difference.
With the Internet in general, were able to find out
anything thats going on in the
world, Whitman says. Social
networking adds a personal
touch. Not only can you find

out whats going on and who
needs help, you can also connect and interact. Its a way to
bring exposure to issues.
Through jointheeffort.org,
people and organizations can
create profiles, add friends,
make posts and comments,
and create and discover ways
to get involved. Since its
launch a year ago, almost 80
nonprofits have utilized the
online hub.
If we believe that this
world is truly valuable, then
its worth fighting forits
worth all the effort to make it
a better place, Whitman says.
Sarah Breed
FOR FOUR years, Marie Cribbs life

was filled with pain. Wheelchair-bound as
a result of complications from diabetes,
two bouts of breast cancer and psoriatic
arthritis, she couldnt lift her arms or legs
and dealt with extreme pain every day.
She had chemotherapy and whenever the chemo left her system, her
arthritis came back in a fury and left every
one of her joints inflamed, explains her
husband, Bill, who served as her caregiver
during this time. It made it very hard
for her to move, and, because of that,
her whole body degenerated, and it was
impossible for her to walk.
That all changed in May when Marie,
who had been unable to attend church
regularly due to her condition, made a
decision to go to a service at Magnolia
Church in Port Neches, Texas, where Paul
Ai was speaking.
Im going to go, she told Bill. I feel
12
like something is going to happen.

Ai, founder of Vision Outreach International, is known as the Apostle Paul of
Vietnam. A former witch
doctor, he came to Christ
during the Vietnam War
and spent 10 years in
communist prisons for
his faith. He now plants
churches in South Asia
from a base in Cambodia.
After a two-hour message on prayer, Ai called
up anyone who needed
prayer and healing.
When Bill rolled Marie
past Ai and his wife, Ruth,
Marie felt an intense
burning in her back. The
couple then began to pray over her.
Pastor Paul commanded all my cells
and my legs to align with the Holy Spirit,
Marie recalls. Then Ruth extended her

hand to me, beckoning her to stand up.
Immediately, I stood up and started
walking! she says.
The Cribbs daughter,
Lolly, says her mother
is back to walking and
jumping and running as
if she was a teenager.
Now, by the grace of
God, I am healed. I will
be a walking witness the
rest of my life, Marie says.
Bill says hes noticed
other changes in his
wife as well. She used to
wake up in the morning
with pain in her face and
Marie Cribbs
her brow furrowed. Every
night shes had a visitation by the Holy
Spirit in her sleep. She wakes up, and her
face is glowing. Gina Meeks
char ismamag.com
BILL CRIBBS
Woman Walks After Four Years Confined to Wheelchair
| THE STRANG REPORT
Our Roots in
the Assemblies of God
I am thankful for my heritage that goes back four generations in this
denomination that has spawned many ministries, including Charisma
BY STEVE STRANG
s the Assemblies of God celebrates

its centennial this month, we focus
on this large and inluential denomination in this issue of Charisma
with several articles and a cover story I wrote.
In 2007 we took a look back at the irst 100
years for the Church of God in Christ when
it celebrated its centennial. A year prior we
did the same with the Azusa Street centennial and even published a cofee table book
on the history of the Pentecostal/charismatic
movement.
But this centennial takes on additional
importance for me because my own roots and
Charismas roots are in this denomination that
has spawned many ministries worldwide.
Charisma was started at Calvary Assembly
of God in Orlando, Florida, when I was a
24-year-old newspaper reporter. I went to the
churchs leaders with an idea to start the magazine, and they hired me to edit Charisma.
For the irst six years we were a department
in what was then one of the fastest-growing
churches in America. Charisma achieved a
measure of success at that point, especially
after well-known author Jamie Buckingham
became a columnist. And by 1981 we had
grown enough to spin of on our own. The
church sold the magazine to my wife and
me that year in a leverage buyout that has
allowed us to develop into the media company we are today.
Those early years at Calvary were formative
for me. I am inluenced even today by things
I learned then. The church had a culture to
try new things and to grow, which is what we
continue to do. Today our corporate culture
and structure is more like a large Assemblies of
God church than a typical publishing house.
Beyond that, my very beginnings
were in the Assemblies. My parents met
at Central Bible Institute in Springield,
14
Missouriheadquarters of the denomination. I was born in the holy city a few years
later, where my father pastored Lighthouse
Assembly of God until I was six years old.
My early life revolved around my family
and church. The Assemblies of God subculture
was all I knew. Back then, women couldnt
wear makeup and there was no TV in our
home. When missionaries came through they
were revered as heroes. The greatest objective in life was to be in ministry. All these were
givens in my young life.
Contrast this to the next phase of my life
when my father attended a liberal Presbyterian seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, because
there were no Pentecostal seminaries in those
days. He then pastored a community church
in Iowa for a couple years before accepting
a position at Southeastern Bible College in
Lakeland, Florida. In hindsight, I can see God
how prepared me for my lifes work with a
Pentecostal upbringing and an exposure to
other denominational traditions. Because I
was exposed to other traditions as a child, I
have been comfortable working in ecumenical
circles as an adult.
So when it came time to write this months
cover story, I did so from the perspective of
having grown up in the Assemblies of God
even though as an adult Ive covered the entire
Pentecostal/charismatic movement. For several decades I had closer ties to other denominations than to the AG, possibly because the
Assemblies leadership didnt know what to do
with a young journalist who they had no idea
what he would write about next.
Once, a general presbyter who was a family
friend asked me if I ever had AG credentials. I
said no. His reply: You never want to get any,
letting me know that I could be more independent outside the denomination than inside.
But my roots in the Assemblies goes back
even further. My maternal grandfather, A.R.

Farley, was ordained at age 24 in 1919. I value
the copy of his ministerial credentials the
Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center gave me.
The same year, he married Alice Kersey, who
worked with him in ministry. Together they
gave birth to not only four children who each
ended up in ministry, but also birthed many
Assemblies of God churches all over Kansas
over a span of 40 years. At one point my grandfather was a district oicial in Kansas. Both of
their mothers also became early Pentecostals,
making me fourth generation in the Assemblies of God.
Many readers dont know our AG roots,
and obviously we dont broadcast them in
every issue. But I believe its important to share
them here. Im proud of my heritage and how
Charisma was born out of Calvary Assembly of
God 39 years ago this month.
I asked a friend who knows everyone whos
anyone in the Assemblies to help me factcheck the cover story. He said the article was
fun to read, adding, You cover it all in a way
that is engaging, while being confrontational,
defending, encouraging and prodding.
That was my goal: to show how God has
used this unlikely denomination full of contradictions for His glory.
I believe God has raised up the Assemblies
for a purpose. As the culture becomes more
ungodly and many in church compromise
the Word of God, we need leaders to stand
for righteousness. Historically the Assemblies
has shied away from speaking out on social
issues. I remember the AG being criticized in
the 1950s for not having a policy on nuclear
disarmament yet having a policy that playing
sports on Sunday was wrong.
Perhaps a casual conversation I had with
George O. Wood two years ago at the Church
of Gods General Assembly is foreshadowing
char ismamag.com
the
Steve Strang in
arisma.
early days of Ch
Alice and A.R. Farley started many Assemblies of God churches all over
Kansas from the 1920s through the 1950s. They are shown here with their
oldest grandson, Steve Strang, at age 2.
of the future. We each had been invited there

as guests. That week Chick-fil-A was in the
news because of comments CEO Dan Cathy
had made defending biblical marriage. The
mayor of Chicago, who supports same-sex
marriage, responded by saying Chick-Fil-A
wasnt welcome in his city. As Dr. Wood and I
talked about the situation, he asked me if that
meant Chicago also didnt want the Roman
Catholic Church or Orthodox Jews or Biblebelieving evangelicals.
I asked him if hed turn his comment into
a blog for us. He challenged me to write it
instead, saying he didnt have timeand
so on the spot I asked him to repeat his
thoughts, which I recorded on my phone. We
quickly transcribed it and had it online in a
few hours. It was shared more than anything
wed run online to that point and was
widely quoted because it was an articulate
commentary on a difficult social issue.
I think he was surprised by the
Calvary A
overwhelming reaction.
sse
where Ch mbly in Orlando,
To me, it was a prophetic
Florida,
arisma w
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sign that God will use Dr.
5.
Wood and other AG leaders to provide
leadership when its so badly needed.
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STEVE STRANG is the founder and publisher of Charisma.

Follow him on Twitter @sstrang or Facebook (stephenestrang).
char ismamag.com
15
F-Strang CM 8-14.indd 16
7/9/14 4:19 PM
LIGHTSTOCK | ISTOCKPHOTO/ IROCHKA_T
S H U T T E R S TO C K/Y I E N K E AT
| COVER STORY
Its been 100 years since the Assemblies of God emerged from the Pentecostal
outpouring at Azusa Street. Charismas founder reports on what the Holy Spirit has
done through the worlds largest Pentecostal denominationand what lies ahead. This
includes a fascinating blend of paradoxes amid unprecedented global growth.
continued
I S TO C K P H OTO / T R A F F I C _ A N A LY Z E R
BY STEVE STRANG
char ismamag.com
17
hen the Assemblies of

God (AG) holds its biennial General Council, the
Pentecostal denomination invites not only top
denominational officials to address
the thousands who attend, but also
renowned speakers from outside AG circles. Three years ago in Phoenix that was
Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren.
The best-selling author of The Purpose
Driven Life challenged the pastors with
one of his signature messages to focus
on five purposes: worship, fellowship,
discipleship, evangelism and compassion
ministry. But for this group, he added a
sixth. His point, customized to the AG
audience hanging on his every word, was
simple yet layered with meaning:
Be Pentecostal.
As a Southern Baptist, Warren pinpointed a touchy subject in the Assemblies of God, a denomination founded
in the aftermath of the revival fires of
Azusa Street, where the message of the
baptism in the Holy Spirit was reignited
and spread throughout the world. While
the worldwide Assemblies of God has
emphasized the baptism in the Holy
Spirit with the initial physical evidence
of speaking in other tongues (based on
Acts 2:4), over the past several decades
observers have noticed a diminishing
emphasis on it in AG churches stateside,
where some pastors seem to try to be
seeker-friendly to those who may not
understand a messages in tongues
with interpretation, as mentioned in the
New Testament.
Warren has become friends with
George O. Wood, who has led the
Assemblies of God as general superintendent since 2007. In fact, Wood
likes Warrens Saddleback Church so
much hes jokingly called it the largest
church in the Assemblies because
so many former AG people attend
Saddleback. When I attended Warrens church, it reminded me of some
AG megachurches: a nice facility, good
worship with a lively band, a carefully choreographed serviceand no
speaking in tongues.
Its unlikely the AG would have
invited to that biennial gathering a Pentecostal firebrand like Rodney HowardBrowne, whose services have been
18
known for holy laughter and other

manifestations.
The truth is, as the Assemblies has
moved up the social ladder in the last
100 years (as have other Pentecostal
denominations), it finds itself a movement of contrasts and paradoxes.
Speaking in tongues is just one of many
within this denomination that still calls
itself a fellowship.
Though some AG congregations may
appear to downplay the baptism in the
Good Growth!
How much is the AG growing around
the world? Check out these stats.
As a result of the Assemblies of Gods
work worldwide ...
A new believer is
added every
A new church is
planted every
A new minister is
trained every
Holy Spirit, in 2013 there was a statistical increase in Spirit baptisms among
AG churchesand that doesnt include
those who received the baptism in the
Spirit outside the local church setting,
such as camp meetings, district-sponsored mens and womens retreats, as
well as childrens and youth camps and
conventions. (Incidentally, I received the
baptism in the Holy Spirit at age 12 at
an AG youth camp in Iowa.)
So while many assume the broad
array of Assemblies churchesincluding
those that dont highlight Spirit

baptism as strongly as othershas led to
a decline in both numbers and emphasis
on the Pentecostal experience, this isnt
necessarily the case. The AG is now the
largest Pentecostal denomination worldwide, with almost 68 million adherents.
In the U.S., the AG has experienced a
remarkable 24 years of uninterrupted
growth. Yet much of this development
both globally and statesidehas come
only in recent years, proving that obviously what the Holy Spirit began a century ago has grown into something few
in 1914 would ever have imagined.
Its a Matter of Numbers

Today the AG frequently refers to
itself as the worlds largest Pentecostal
denomination, yet even this needs some
clarification. In the U.S. the Assemblies
has 3.1 million members, much less than
the 6.1 million often attributed to the
Church of God in Christ (COGIC).
But Ive talked to COGIC leaders who
admit that the numbers are estimates
since the denomination doesnt keep
detailed statistics.
AG leaders will tell you numbers
arent as important as their overall vision
for accomplishing the greatest evangelism that the world has ever seen. Thats
meant that historically the Assemblies
doesnt emphasize membership the way
other denominations do, in part to distance itself from the countless churches
with bloated numbers from CEO
membersthose who attend Christmas
and Easter Only. Countless people will
attend an AG church yet never become
members. Because of this, the AG more
frequently refers to its adherents both
here and overseasthose who attend
regularly but arent necessarily members.
What about the adherents worldwide (theres no official term to identify
them like Methodists or Catholics)? Are
they all AG? Each country has its own
denomination, only loosely affiliated in
the World Assemblies of God Fellowship
(WAGF). In Canada, for example, the
largest of three WAGF-affiliated groups
is known as the Pentecostal Assemblies
of Canada. (There are also the Canadian
Assemblies of God and the Pentecostal
Assemblies of God.) In Korea there
are the Korean Assemblies of God and
char ismamag.com
The Assemblies of God website compares the racial diversity shown

in this historic Azusa Street photo (William Seymour is seated second
from right)...
the Jesus Assemblies of God, due to a

denominational split.
In the U.S. people call the Assemblies
of God AG for short. But dont use
that term in Australia; there its called
AOG. In the past several decades the
AOG has exploded, helping Pentecostals
become the second-largest segment of
Christendom in the country, surpassed
only by Roman Catholics. he Pentecostal movement has been shaped by
...to the racial and cultural diversity of the Assemblies of God today at its
Centennial celebration in Springield, Missouri, in August 2014.
may not use the denominational name.

And true to form, the Assemblies is just
ine with that.
Reasons to Begin
Indeed, the story of the Assemblies
is one of apparent contradiction
including theories over how and why
it was started. he year 1914 marked
the start of World War I. Most Pentecostals of the day were paciists, much
organizational structure. (See Woods

article on p. 32.)
he father and grandparents of the
late Paul Crouch, founder of Trinity
Broadcasting Network, were among the
earliest missionaries who helped start
the Assemblies of God. Today the AG
USA has more than 2,800 missionaries
serving in countries around the world,
and the relationship with the AG USA
and other national bodies is a strong one,
F LO W E R P E N T E CO S TA L H E R I TAG E C E N T E R
The denomination has maintained doctrinal integrity during decades in

which other denominations have become increasingly liberal.
many things in Australia, but one of
the major inluencers has been Hillsong
Church in Sydney, where Senior Pastor
Brian Houston and former worship
pastor Darlene Zschech made the church
known globally for its intense worship,
iery preaching, strong integrity and doctrinal purityall while being trendy.
In some ways that relects where
the Assemblies is today: aiming to be
relevant and accepted yet also trying to
remain doctrinally pure and morally
strong in a world light years removed
from 1914, when its founders met in
the Grand Opera House in Hot Springs,
Arkansas (see History in the Assembling sidebar). Todays AG churches are
among the largest in the U.S., and in
most metro areas the largest Pentecostal
or charismatic church is AG, though it
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like Mennonites are viewed today.

hese early Pentecostals, as well as other
paciist evangelicals at the turn of the
20th century, opposed war because they
believed they should focus on working
for the heavenly King. hey viewed
killing people on behalf of earthly kings
as moral compromise. Because of this,
some have hypothesized the AG became
a haven for anti-war peacekeepers, yet
that sentiment had essentially left by the
time World War II began.
Its also said that the AG was formed
to give covering to the many freelance
missionaries spreading the gospel and
Pentecostal message around the world.
Indeed, the denomination has been
undeniably missions-minded since its
origins, and evangelism and world missions have continued to be pillars of its
but without any governance or structural

control from headquarters in the U.S.
heres never been anything like
what the Assemblies of God has done
through its missionaries and missions
strategy of developing the indigenous
church: self-governing, self-supporting,
and self-propagating, Wood says.
Weve had scores of missionaries lay
down their lives on foreign soil for the
gospel. Our churches and pastors have
prayed and sacriiced to send missionaries to the far-lung parts of this world.
Leith Anderson, president of the
National Association of Evangelicals
(NAE), recently told Wood: If you
took the Assemblies of God out of the
Kingdom of God, you would blow
a pretty big hole in the Kingdom
continued
of God.
19
Of Race and Reconciliation

Yet another theory to the AGs origins
is that the denomination began because
of racism. This is a touchy issue not only
because of the general stain of racism in
American history, but also because of
the deep historical ties between the AG
and the predominantly black COGIC,
founded seven years prior to the AGs
formation. Bishop Mason ordained at
least one AG founder, Howard Goss,
and the COGIC founder and AG
founders knew and respected each other.
In fact, Mason spoke at the inaugural
General Council, brought his black
gospel choir from Lexington, Mississippi, and blessed the newly formed AG.
As with the Azusa Street revival,
whites and blacks came together in
the early days of the movement before
structure had developed. When organizations emerged, however, they did
so along cultural linesunder the Jim
Crow lawsand the interracial fellowship of the early years dissipated.
When the civil rights movement
gained traction in the 1950s and 1960s,
with a few exceptions AG leaderslike
most other white Pentecostalssat it
out. Once again, this was in contrast

to early precedents of the movement.
In 1915 the AG ordained its first black
minister, Ellsworth S. Thomas of Binghamton, New York. And the Assemblies
ordained a number of black men and
women until 1939, when it instituted a
rule against ordaining blacks. They could
still be licensed at the district level, but
not ordained at the national level. This
racist rule was overturned in 1962, when
Bob Harrison, a well-known AfricanAmerican evangelist and associate of
Billy Graham, was ordained.
In recent decades Assemblies leaders
have worked to bridge the racial divide.
In 1989, the denominations General
Council adopted a resolution repenting
of the sin of racism in any form. The
Assemblies changed its governance structure in 1997 to include representatives
of ethnic fellowships on its General and
Executive Presbyteries. And in 2007,
Zollie Smith Jr., an African-American
with COGIC roots, became the AGs
executive director of U.S. missions.
Under Woods leadership, the Assemblies has reached out to and dialogued
more with COGICa rarity since the
two denominations early days. And in

2012, the widow of longtime COGIC
presiding bishop J.O. Patterson Sr.
deposited his personal papers in the
Assemblies of God archives, not only to
preserve them for posterity, but also as a
sign of reconciliation.
Indeed, racial reconciliation has
been a storyline for the AG since the
beginning. Azusa Street unified races
in unprecedented fashion, as did the
inaugural General Council gathering
in Hot Springs. Yet by 1917, racism
raised its ugly head within the fledgling
denomination when AG leaders refused
to appoint pastor Alexander Howard as
a missionary to Liberia because, oddly
enough, he was black. That single decision spawned yet another split among
Pentecostal groups, as a few years later
Howard helped to form the United
Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies
of God (UPCAG), which operated for
decades under the radar screen of AG
leadership in the headquarters city of
Springfield, Missouri.
It wasnt until 2010, when UPCAG
presiding elder Thomas A. Barclay reached out to Wood, that the
History in the Assembling

Birthed out of the Azusa Street revival, the Assemblies of God brought clarity and unity to a movement in need of order
No one imagined the world would be changed out of an old,
dilapidated building at 312 Azusa Street in downtown Los Angeles. Yet
in the aftermath of the Azusa Street revival (1906-1909), the Pentecostal
message spread as fast as word of mouth could carry it, shaping history
from that point on.
As hundreds of independent Pentecostal churches and missions were
birthed throughout the country, however, problems and confusion arose
along with them. Strange teachings surfaced, and many Pentecostal
preachers with little or no formal education didnt know how to address
doctrinal aberrations. Problems also cropped up on the foreign mission
field, with some missionaries returning home without establishing a
lasting work and others seeming to spend most of their time traveling to
and from the field. Some leaders began to realize the need for some sort
of cooperative fellowship that would quell the problems independent
churches could not handle on their own.
Against this background, a call was published in the December issue
of the Word and Witness for a general council to be convened April 2-12 at
the Grand Opera House in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The call was addressed
to all Pentecostal churches and assemblies who desire with united purpose to cooperate in love and peace to push the interests of the kingdom
of God everywhere. This call came from the leaders of two groups of
20
Pentecostals, one in Texas and one in Alabama, both known as the Church
of God in Christ.
The group in Texas had originally been a part of Charles Fox Parhams
Apostolic Faith association. When some members decided to sever ties
with Parham, they formed the Church of God in Christ and in Unity with
the Apostolic Faith, which had loose tiespossibly in name onlyto
Charles H. Masons network of black churches, the Church of God in Christ.
Though the two groups knew and respected each other and on occasions engaged in ministry together, there were no legal ties and both
functioned independently. E.N. Bell, a seminary-trained Baptist from Fort
Worth, rose to prominent leadership of this Texas group and was the
editor of their paper, the Apostolic Faith.
In 1913 the group merged with a small denomination in Alabama
with the same name. The Alabama group was led by M.M. Pinson and H.G.
Rodgers, both of whom had been baptized in the Holy Spirit through the
ministry of G.B. Cashwell. The new organization retained the name Church
of God in Christ and appointed Bell to edit their paper, Word and Witness.
The convention convened April 2 with more than 300 in attendance
from 20 mostly Midwestern states. About 120 registered as ministers
or missionaries and official delegates. Prominent names in the movement were present: John G. Lake, F.F. Bosworth, J. Roswell Flower and, of
char ismamag.com
process of reconciliation for these two

entities began.
We have now been on a four-year
journey with the United Pentecostal
Council of the Assemblies of God,
which was birthed in 1919 because of
racism in the Assemblies of God, Wood
says, calling the move to unite the two
bodies a vital forward step.
A Blended Future
Adding to this racial paradox is this

fact: Though the AG has been historically white, its future is anything but.
Today 41 percent of the AG in the U.S.
is non-white, with almost 22 percent
being Hispanic and 10 percent black.
The denomination now has 20 districts
for U.S. members who are non-English
speakers, as well as an additional 21
ethnic and language fellowships.
The demographic shift that is
underway is a game changer. To me, that
is the big story, says Darrin Rodgers,
the respected archivist of the Assemblies
Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.
Anglos have plateaued numerically in
the Assemblies, but every other ethnic
group is growing significantly. God
raised up people from other cultures to

take leadership. The Assemblies of God,
increasingly, is a multiethnic fellowship
of Spirit-empowered believers.
Rodgers should know about demographic shifts. Reared in a largely white
AG congregation in North Dakota, hes
been a member of a Slavic immigrant
church in Springfield for three years.
When revival hit Azusa Street, the
ethnic divides came tumbling down,
Rodgers says. I believe the Holy Spirit
is similarly calling us to get out of
our comfort zones and form relationships with people who are different
than ourselves.
Though most AG churches historically havent been melting pots, that is
changing. In Orlando, Florida, for
example, the 5,000-member Faith
Assembly, the largest Pentecostal church
in Central Florida, was 80 percent white
and had a Sunday morning attendance
of 950 when Carl Stephens became
pastor in 1987. Today the church is 70
percent non-white.
As further proof, the Hispanic District in Florida is now called the Florida
Multicultural District. A recent district
course, Bell, Rodgers and Pinson.

Because many Pentecostals distrusted the idea of organizing,
the conveners of this convention set aside the first three days
for prayer, worship and hearing
reports and testimonies from
those in attendance. This relaxed
the tensions and cultivated a
sense of unity.
As participants prayed and
praised, they felt a distinct sense
of Gods presence filling the old
opera house. One participant
First executive presbytery in 1914.
Seated (L-R): T.K. Leonard, E.N. Bell, Cyrus Fockler;
recalled a halo of glory that
Standing (L-R): John W. Welch, J. Roswell Flower,
rested over the sessions. Pinson
D.C.O. Opperman, Howard A. Goss, M.M. Pinson.
brought the keynote address
titled The Finished Work of Calvary, which clearly indicated this incipient organizations stance on the controversial subject
of sanctification.
From these humble roots came a denomination that, though tested immediately in its
early years, has grown to become the worlds largest Pentecostal denomination with a global
constituency of more than 67 million and an American constituency of over 3 million.
char ismamag.com
council in June included brief messages

in Arabic, English and Portuguese, in
addition to Spanish. The German District is now called the International Ministry Network and is one-third black.
Another example, according to Rodgers, is the historic First Christian AG
(now Peoples Church) in Cincinnati.
When pastor Chris Beard joined the staff
22 years ago, the church was 98 percent
white and dying. Now its thriving.
Twenty-five percent of the members are
black and 25 percent are international,
representing more than 30 countries.
Parklawn AG in Milwaukee, one of
the oldest AG churches in the nation,
has a similar story. It was white and
dying, but in 1993 the mostly white
congregation asked its black youth
pastor, Walter Harvey, to serve as senior
pastor. The congregation has since grown
significantly, is multiethnic and now has
over 1,200 at Sunday services.
And in Rodgers hometown of Grand
Forks, North Dakota, the two newest
AG churchesboth launched in the
last two yearsinclude one started by a
Cameroon AG missionary to the US and
another consisting of 60 Nepalese immigrants who recently accepted Christ. The
African congregation, like many new
immigrant churches, is connected with
the Assemblies in its homeland but not
officially part of the AG USA.
Samuel Rodriguez, president of the
National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and an AG-ordained
minister, predicts that by the end of this
centuryif not soonermost Pentecostals in America will be non-white. For
decades American Pentecostalism has
been predominantly white and rural,
he says. It will soon become primarily
ethnic and urban.
If the AGs largest church is any indication, the shift has already begun: That
distinction, long held by Phoenix First
AG, now goes to New Life Covenant
AG, a Hispanic congregation in Chicago
led by Wilfredo de Jess. With many
non-whites having a stronger Pentecostal
identity than white adherents, Rodgers
adds a key element: As the old mainline
crumbles and becomes the sideline, Pentecostals are becoming the new defenders
of basic orthodoxy. If you want to
understand where the AG is headed, it is
21
In the 1970s, Calvary Assembly in Orlando,

Florida, welcomed charismatics. Charisma was
founded here in 1975.
help Spirit-empowered Christians come

together for the purpose of world evangelism, Rodgers says. Sessions will
highlight how the Spirit is bringing unity
across the racial, linguistic divides.
Assemblies Government 101

While the AGs current racial makeup
defies its relatively recent history, theres
also a paradox in how the denomination
is structured. Its what observers see as an
odd mix of congregational governance,
where each congregation owns its own
property as in Baptist denominations,
and a form of presbyterian polity. Local
church leaders do not report to headquarters. However, the credentials of
ministers are held by the district councils
and the General Council. Ministers are
accountable in areas of doctrine, morality
and ethics.
This means churches are independent
but clergy answer to district-level officials
who are elected. National leaders are also
elected, while the entire denomination
22
is governed by General Presbyters who

meet annually in Springfield (the Executive Presbytery meets five times a year)
and by a General Council that meets
every other year.
Like most denominations the
leadership is predominantly male. Yet
paradoxically, women have been credentialed since the beginning. My own
mother-in-law, Rose Ferrell, who passed
away in 2011 at age 96, was an ordained
AG minster who pioneered churches
throughout the South and overseas with
her husband. The AG initially ordained
women as missionaries and evangelists,
but not as elders. This changed in 1935.
Mary P. Patterson dedicating her late

husbands papers at FPHC with Director
Darrin Rodgers
The AG has a long history of female

evangelists, and today there are nearly
600 women senior pastors. Of the six
members of the Executive Management
Team, two are women who serve as vice
presidents. Beth Grant serves as the
lone female on the Executive Presbytery,
representing ordained female ministers
and having served in that position since
2009. And Carol Taylor was president
of Vanguard University before going to
Springfield to serve as president of the
new consolidated Evangel Universitya
first in the schools 92-year history.
These days the average AG churchgoer
might not know the difference between
the Springfield where the AG headquarters is and the dozens of other Springfields that dot the American landscape.
But be assured, AG pastors know. They
use Springfield to refer to headquarters
the way journalists use Washington to
refer to the federal government. Insiders
jokingly refer to Springfield as Mecca
or the Holy City.
AG pastors are first certified, licensed,

then ordained. Though churches dont
have to tithe to the denomination as the
Church of God (Cleveland) requires,
pastors are required to send in a portion
of their tithe to the district and can be
disciplined if they dont. (The percentage
of the ministers tithe depends on the
district.) The only real control the
denomination has over its clergy, however, is to pull the papers (withdraw
their ordination, effectively kicking them
out of the AG) if they stray doctrinally
or have a moral or ethical failure.
In the early days AG leaders did not
seem as open as today. Consider how
Its more than camping at Royal Rangers

National Camporama. This is the altar time in
a 1998 photo.
David du Plessis was treated in the early

1960s. Originally from South Africa,
he took the message of the baptism in
the Holy Spirit to so many mainline
churches he became known as Mr.
Pentecost. For reasons that may be
never fully known, his credentials in the
Assemblies were withdrawn because,
as he told me years later when I wrote
about him in Charisma, he was hobnobbing with liberals in the National
Council of Churches. AG leaders later
apologized to him, and in 1980 he was
reinstated as an AG minister.
Another example is Loren Cunningham, who founded Youth With
A Mission while in the denomination.
He had a vision to take young people
overseas on trips to give them a heart
for missions. The story goes that an AG
leader said he would approve this as long
as Cunningham limited it to about 10
per year. Today YWAM has more than
16,000 full-time missionaries around
the worldalmost four times as many
char ismamag.com
is essential to take into account these

cultural and demographic shifts.
These shifts will also take center
stage at the AGs centennial celebration
Aug. 5-10 in Springfield. An estimated
900 Africans will attend, as will almost
300 people from Koreaincluding a
group that will join a 100-voice choir
from Nam Soo Kims church in Queens,
New York.
As a denomination, the AG will not
only be celebrating the centennial, but
also the World AG Fellowships 25th
anniversary. The centennial will be a
huge event, with our message focused
on this big idea: that the AG exists to
Y WAM
as the Assemblies itself. Of course, one

AG official told me that it was a missiological difference that led to the parting
of the ways. While YWAM may have
more people on the field, the Assemblies
has worked to establish the indigenous
church, resulting in more than 360,000
local AG churches around the world.
We invested heavily in raising up
pastors and leaders in their own nations,
founding hundreds upon hundreds of
short-term and long-term Bible colleges
that have now equipped tens of thousands of national workers and pastors,
Wood says. And the AG learned from
YWAM and has deployed thousands of
young people over the years in shortterm missions assignments.
The narrow-mindedness that
prompted duPlessis and Cunningham
to leave also led to a well-known quip by
the late C.M. Ward, who at the time was
the voice of the denominations weekly
radio broadcast, Revivaltime, making
his name a household word in Assemblies circles. Ward was an iconoclast
of sorts and seemed to enjoy tweaking
the leaders in Springfield, despite the
fact the leadership gave him the microphone for 25 years. After he said that
the Assemblies leadership must be on
the pill because they hadnt given birth
to a new idea in years, denominational
leaders called him in to explain. At first
he denied saying it. But when a tape was
played of him saying it in Canada, he
responded: Well, you never know what
you will say under the anointing.
One Springfield insider who knows
the personalities involved told me that
some of the leaders Ward criticized may
not have been perfect, but if Springfield
had been on the pill then, we wouldnt
be seeing the explosive growth we are
having today. Obviously, some foundations were being laid in those years.
In the past leadership also frowned
upon AG pastors preaching in nonAssemblies churches. Yet, true to the
ongoing paradox of its makeup, the
denomination has always been open
to other groups and, unlike the United
Pentecostal Church, has never said it is
the only church. In fact, the AG was
one of the founders of the National
Association of Evangelicals in 1943 and
for decades has been the NAEs largest
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member and financial contributor.

Today things have changed so much
that AG pastors frequently headline
cross-denominational conferences while
other leaders enjoy freedoms unheard
of in previous generations. For example,
Matthew Barnett, who founded the
Dream Center in Los Angeles with his
father, beloved AG megachurch pastor
Tommy Barnett, now pastors Angelus
Temple, the famous Foursquare church
An early confidant of Billy Graham (left)

was Robert Walker
Loren Cunningham
originally started
YWAM in the AG
founded by Aimee Semple McPherson.

Matthew Barnett surrendered his AG
credentials but still leads the Dream
Center, which remains AG. And in
recent years, some exceptions have been
made for pastors holding joint credentials with other denominations.
Bridges to the Evangelical World

If C.M. Ward and others thought
the national headquarters leadership of
a past generation were more bureaucratic than spiritual, theres at least
one underreported story of how they
ministered to an evangelical journalist
in a way that flamed what became
the charismatic movement.

In the early 1950s, Robert Walker
was the influential publisher of Christian
Life magazine and an early supporter
and confidant of Billy Graham. Walker
was among the first evangelical to move
his headquarters to Wheaton, Illinois,
which became the evangelical Vatican.
During those years, he developed a
relationship with some Assemblies of
God leaders through the NAE and was
intrigued by their infectious enthusiasm, which stood in stark contrast to
the stiff formality of many evangelicals
of the day.
In his journalistic travels he ended
up at Assemblies of God headquarters
in Springfield in 1954, where several
of the executive presbyters laid hands
on him and prayed for him. Walker
received the baptism in the Holy Spirit
with evidence of speaking in tongues.
Though he remained a longtime
member of the Evangelical Covenant
Church in Wheaton, still he never
denied this experience and loved to tell
others like me about it, though he was
discreet about whom he told. For the
rest of his life the evangelical community considered him one of their own,
even though he was one of the first
denominational people in that era to
receive the Pentecostal experience.
This resulted in Christian Life publishing an article aimed at evangelicals
about the Pentecostals headlined, Are
We Missing Something? It may have
been the first article written about
what was later called the charismatic
movement. Though Walker was lowkey about his experience, he fanned
the flames of renewal whenever he
could, writing in Christian Life the
very first article about a young broadcaster named Pat Robertson when he
founded CBN and later ghostwriting
Pat Boones testimony of how he
received the infilling of the Holy Spirit
in A New Song, which sold more than
2 million copies after it was published
in 1972.
Walker also embraced the Pentecostal experience so much years later he
turned over his publishing enterprise to
a young Pentecostal editorme. And
in 1987 Charisma magazine merged
continued
with Christian Life.
23
Standards That Shaped

a Movement
hough todays generation of leaders
chuckle at the AGs history of not mingling with other groups, this conservative approach has undoubtedly had one
beneit: he Assemblies has maintained
doctrinal integrity during decades
in which other denominations have
become increasingly liberal.
his could likely be because of the
split that rocked the ledgling denomination in only its second year of existence.
hat controversy began when some Pentecostals rejected a Trinitarian baptismal
formula (i.e., baptizing in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
which has been the norm since the
First Council of Nicaea in 325) in favor
of baptizing converts in the name of
Jesus only. Within a couple of years the
did not call themselves that. Assemblies

leaders are quick to say they are committed to apostolic doctrine, apostolic
mission and apostolic practice, but not
to self-appointed people running around
calling themselves apostles!
Growing up, I remember early
charismatics were looked askance by
AG people I knew. When word came
out that Episcopalians and Methodists
were speaking in tongues, these people
didnt know what to think. After all, the
women from these outside denominations wore makeup and their members
didnt see anything wrong with drinking
wine! Didnt they know those violated
Pentecostal standards of holiness?
Like all Pentecostals of the day,
cultural standards of holiness were not
only important, but also often preached
as gospel in the early decades of the
denominational churches. Most would

attend charismatic conferences or home
groups where the gifts of the Spirit
were in full operation, then return to
their churches alame with a new kind
of baptism.
Until the advent of what became
known as the charismatic movement
in mainline churches, the assumption
was that if you spoke in tongues, you
joined a Pentecostal church. As this
began to change, however, some Pentecostal leaders were slow to recognize the
shift. So when the Conference on the
Charismatic Renewal in the Christian
Churches took place in Kansas City in
1977, some top AG leaders drove up
from Springield and were introduced
to the crowd as observers. Maybe they
thought there might be wildireafter
all, the Assemblies had worked hard to
As the Assemblies has moved up the social ladder in the last 100
years, it finds itself a movement of contrasts and paradoxes.
Jesus Only (or Oneness) Pentecostals
also rejected the doctrine of the Trinity,
which split the AG and ultimately led
to the formation of the non-Trinitarian
United Pentecostal Church.
Over the years the Assemblies has
been careful when dealing with matters
of heresy or odd Pentecostal manifestations. Leadership would typically issue
a white paper at General Council
that let the rank and ile know how to
respond to new phenomena such as
the latter rain movement in the late
1940s. he AG rejected such elements as
calling ministers apostles or prophets,
even though other phenomena that
seemed odd at the time such as spiritual warfare or singing in the spirit
have since been widely embraced by
the Spirit-illed community. Today the
Assemblies actually does use apostolic
in reference to ground-breaking eforts
to plant churches where they dont exist.
For example, persons such as the late
Mark Buntain, the founder of Mission
of Mercy in India (which Charisma
covered in our April issue this year),
functioned as apostles even though they
24
denominations existence. Sleeveless

dresses were a no-no, as were ingernail
polish and lipstick. So was going to the
movies or even owning a TV. Most of
these things had gone by the wayside
by the early 1960s. (However, today the
denomination still expects its clergy to
abstain from alcohol.)
In a day when culturally anything
goes, these have become antiquated standards from the holiness movement from
which Pentecostalism spawned. Younger
Pentecostals often arent aware these were
standards only a generation ago, while
older generations joke about what it
was like to be told you couldnt read the
funny paper on Sunday because it was
the Lords Day.
Yet this commitment to walking in
holiness shaped the Assemblies and, as
the charismatic movement emerged in
the 1960s and 1970s, an entirely new
generation of Spirit-illed believers. Like
those in the Assemblies, these charismatics refused to succumb to cultural
trappings, while also introducing an
interesting twist to the Pentecostal
line: hey saw no reason to leave their
become more mainstream within the

evangelical community.
Upon witnessing irsthand more
than 50,000 newly Spirit-illed believers
lowing in a new, exciting move of the
Spirit, the AG leaders went home and
gave it Springields stamp of approval.
Yet even this support displayed the
paradoxical undertones within the
denomination. he AG is a grass-roots
movement, and many local churches
were already reaching out to charismatics
and embracing them. In addition, probably every Full Gospel Businessmens
chapter received strong AG involvement.
In time, charismatics locked to AG
churches, as well as other denominational congregations such as Jack Hayfords Church On he Way (part of the
Foursquare Church), causing churches
that had struggled to grow to a few hundred at most to mushroom to thousands
almost overnight. But among the Assemblies, response was mixed.
Some churches preferred the old-fashioned ways. hey looked to Springield
for leadership, bought all their materials from the denominations Gospel
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C.M. Ward, voice of Revivaltime from 19541978, was known to be an iconoclast away
from the mic.
The Black Eye Years
TBN Founder Paul Crouch founded KCBI

at Central Bible Collegeforeshadowing
things to come.
Schools of the Spirit

At the same time the Assemblies
grew in tandem with the charismatic
renewal, small Bible colleges, most
founded within the first two decades
after 1914, became regionally accredited and added professors who not only
were powerful preachers, but also had
advanced degrees. This advancement
has continued into the present era,
during which many of these schools
have become universities. The largest of
these is Southeastern University in Lakeland, with more than 3,400 students. In
Springfield, Central Bible Collegethe
third oldest and, until the 1980s, the
leading school in the movementconsolidated with Evangel University, the
first Pentecostal liberal arts college in
America, and the Assemblies of God
Theological Seminary (AGTS) into one
institution called Evangel University
in 2013.
26
this was so the Executive Presbytery

could keep a watchful eye. Theory or
not, AGTS was launched in part so military chaplains could gain their necessary
seminary degree. The feeling within the
denomination was that they needed to
have these Assemblies chaplains trained
here, rather than there.
Fast-forward years later and
numerous AG chaplains have risen
to positions of prominence. Principal
among those is Major General Cecil
Richardson, who recently retired as
Chief of Chaplains for the entire U.S.
Air Force and was a 1973 graduate of
Evangel. And recently AGTS alum
Delana Ingram Small became not only
the first female chaplain in the nation
to report to an Army combat arms unit,
she was also the first female chaplain
assigned to the 101st Airborne Division
(aka, The Screaming Eagles).
Seminaryeven the word itself hit

a nerve for many years in AG circles.
Many early Pentecostals didnt believe
in seminary, arguing that a preacher
needed the power of the Holy Spirit,
not a degree. Besides, they said, seminaries usually hastened a denomination going liberal such as Emory
University, the Methodist school in
Atlanta that spawned the God is dead
controversy in the 1960s. (One more
paradox, however: The first AG general superintendent, E.N. Bell, had a
seminary education.)
These same Pentecostals called seminaries cemeteries. And for the first six
decades they got by without them. Then
in the 1970s AGTS was formed in a
wing of the turquoise-colored headquarters building in Springfieldwhich in
itself was questioned, as some speculated
With the charismatic movement in

full swing, the era of parachurch media
ministries was also emerging. Once again
another paradox within the AG arose:
While the headquarters kept a strong
grip on the gospel message coming out
of Springfield through its Revivaltime
radio show or the officially approved
Gospel Publishing House content, an
entrepreneurial spirit sprung upthe
same bent that launched Bible colleges
years before, sent missionaries around
the world to birth indigenous AG
denominations or fired up a young man
like Loren Cunningham to thrust thousands of young people into missions.
This time it was with evangelists like
Jimmy Swaggart, whose fiery Louisiana
brand of Pentecostal preaching not only
gained him a huge following, but also
helped spark the Pentecostal revival in
Latin America, according to Rodriguez.
Paul Crouch, who attended Central
Bible College and worked at the AGs
headquarters in the media department at
one time, launched Trinity Broadcasting
Network in 1973. Shortly thereafter Jim
Bakker, who attended North Central
Bible College in Minneapolis and grew
up in the AG, started the PTL network,
which took off like a rocket.
In 1987 Bakker became the personification of the unscrupulous televangelist
char ismamag.com
Publishing House and often became

critical of their more liberal brethren
who compromised standards.
Other AG congregations thrived
during this time as charismatics coming
in enjoyed the freedom of worship, the
teaching of the Word and the fact that
pastors such as Karl Strader of First
Assembly in Lakeland, Florida (where
I attended as a teen), or Roy Harthern
down the road at Calvary Assembly in
Orlando (where Charisma started) welcomed them with open arms.
Instead of receiving the biblical right
hand of fellowship from their original
churches, many of these newly Spiritbaptized believers had been given the
left foot of fellowship, so these Assemblies became safe houses for healing and
spiritual growth. Of course, these were
two among hundreds of AG congregations around the country that welcomed
charismatics.
This phenomenon fueled growth
for many years, as Assemblies were no
longer on the other side of the tracks
within the evangelical community and,
more importantly, welcomed those
hungry for a move of the Spirit. Since
the late 70s the denomination has
grown stateside by almost 250 percent
while mainline denominations have continued to lose members.
Congratulations,
Assemblies of God,
for 100 Years of
Worldwide Influence
As fellow sons and daughters of the
Azusa Street Revival, we celebrate the
ways you continue to champion the gifts
of the Spirit, the credibility of women
in ministry leadership, the cause to
care for the poor and the immigrant,
the importance of multiethnic unity,
the celebration of diversity, a idelity
to Scripture, and a desire to share the
gospel worldwide with compassion,
evangelism and practical aid.
What united us in our beginnings at
Azusa Street continues to be a valued
core and shared mission today.
With 67.5 million members worldwide,
Assemblies of God has stayed true to
the vision God delivered.
Congratulations to the worlds largest
Pentecostal denomination on 100 years
of faithful and fruitful global ministry.
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when he admitted to a moral failure that

threw PTL into bankruptcy and landed
him in prison for five years. Along
the way Swaggart became increasingly
critical of Bakker until his own moral
failures were exposed in the following
years. His solicitations of prostitutes
effectively ruined what was a massive,
global ministry at the time, and ever
since he has carried on at only a tiny
fraction of the size.
Though secular media predictably
enjoyed taking shots at the televangelists,
the Bakker/Swaggart scandals were also
a huge black eye to the Assembliesas
it was to the entire cause of Christ
around the world. Both men had been
ordained in the Assemblies, though their
ministries were totally independent with
separate boards. And while Christian
commentators waxed eloquent about
the televangelists lack of accountability,
the truth is they were accountable
to the denominationwhich disciplined them in the only way it could:
it withdrew their ordination as a result
of their wrongs.
Unlike nondenominational churches
where leaders such as Bishop Eddie
Long or the now-deceased Zachery
Tims remained in their pulpits through
allegations of sexual immorality, the
Assemblies held a strong line insisting
on moral purity. But while they did so,
they also offered a way to rehabilitate the
erring ministers, unlike some conservative evangelical groups where one moral
strike against you disqualifies you from
the ministry for life.
Rehabilitation for moral failure is
never less than two years, and countless AG ministers have submitted
to this discipline and re-entered the
ministry. However, Bakker and Swaggart chose not to. Today each operates
independently. Bakker, who wrote
a tell-all account of his transgressions in I Was Wrong, has ironically
started over only a few miles south
of Springfield and has quietly built
a smaller, albeit debt-free, version of
the former Heritage USA. Those who
know him well say hes a changed man.
Swaggarts ministry has continued
to dwindle, though hes still on the
air blasting any preacher he doesnt
agree with.
28
Facing an Uncertain
Future With Faith
Most observers laud the Assemblies
with its handling of these extremely difficult and public scandals. Still, it was
embarrassing and cast a certain pall over
the denomination. No longer was it seen
as the widely successful, growing church;
instead, it showed that it was uncertain
of itself and its future.
Indeed, anyone attending a large AG
conference has sensed the unique energy;
theyre upbeat, powerful and filled with
believers claiming the Spirits power and
blessing. Look out, devil! Yet behind
the scenes theres been serious secondguessing and tension. The leadership
knows the rank and file dont look to
them the way COGIC looks to its presiding bishop. The successful churches
sometimes have little denominational
loyalty (with exceptions, of course). Add
to this the changing morality of society
and how is a denomination to respond?
Enter two dynamic leaders.
Tom Trask, a likable former pastor
and district superintendent from Michigan, inherited a tough job as he became
general superintendent five years after
the Bakker/Swaggart scandals. Known
for giving friends and strangers alike a
hearty European-style kiss on the cheeks,
Trasks passion was infectious. He
encouraged entrepreneurs like Hal Donaldson and his brothers to build Convoy
of Hope (see story on p. 38). Today
Convoy distributes almost $80 million
worth of goods and supplies each year to
those in need around the world.
Trask also was willing to jettison
Assemblies programs and surrounded
himself with leaders who brought
in younger people and encouraged
church growth, particularly among
Hispanics and African-Americans.
During Trasks tenure came the emergence of leaders such as Rodriguez,
who has become influential through his
National Hispanic Christian Leadership
Conference, which represents millions
of Hispanic believers and more than
40,000 U.S. churches.
Trask abruptly resigned in 2007
before his term ended, which would
normally leave a gaping hole. Yet the
man who followed him had served
on the Executive Presbytery as general
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30
secretary for 14 years: George O. Wood.

Trained as a lawyer, Wood had been a
pastor in California for 17 years, then
assistant superintendent in the Southern
California district for five years before
becoming general secretary. (Read more
about Wood on p. 32).
Heres another paradox: At age 72,
Wood is embraced by the younger
generation, who seem to understand
his larger-than-life task of retooling a
denomination for the future. To accomplish that, hes brought in leaders with
experience at LifeWay (owned by the
Southern Baptists) whom he found
working at The Oaks Fellowship, an AG
megachurch in Dallas. He tasked them
with revitalizing the AG publishing program, including servicing churches more
effectively with the My Healthy Church
brand of ministry resources. With support of the Executive Presbytery and
General Presbytery, he reorganized the
many departments that were independent kingdoms and installed COO
Sol Arledge, an independently wealthy
Pentecostal businessman who had retired
to serve full-time as a volunteer youth
pastor but eventually wound up at headquarters in Springfield.
Like Trask, Wood understands the
importance of fanning already-fueled
fires, and for todays Assemblies that
means tending to the denominations
largest areas of growth: ethnic minorities
and millennials. In addition to the aforementioned surge among non-whites,
one-third of the AG (1.1 million) is
now 25 years old or younger, and 52
percent are under age 35. Currently
there are 12,800 AG churches in the
U.S., 2,000 of which have been added in
just the past six years. Recently released
statistics show the AGs growth percentage continues to outpace that of the
American population.
Dr. Woods leadership has given our
movement a chance to prove the historians wrong, says Scott Wilson, pastor
of The Oaks Fellowship. Time alone
doesnt make an organization obsolete ...
stubborn pride and a love for the status
quo is what takes you down.
If Wood has any sayand hes had
plenty thus far in shaping a new AG
those two deterrents wont factor into
what is obviously a bright future for
the denomination. What looms instead

are the massive questions of cultural
relevancy amid increasingly hostile
opposition. How will AG churches and
believers respond when theyre targeted
by such forces as the gay agenda or an
anti-Christian government?
Though most AG adherents are
politically conservative, politics is rarely
discussed and Assemblies leaders of past
generations have been curiously quiet in
the cultural wars, unlike other Christians
leaders such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or attorney Jay Sekulow.
Wood sees it differently, however:
We have been anything but quiet. In
regard to homosexuality, I have taken
strong public stands on homosexual
issues related to the Boy Scouts [and]
World Vision, as well as an active role
in the Springfield community when the
city council was poised to enact legislation favorable to homosexuals. Pastors
all across the country have spoken up for
life (against abortion) and for marriage
as between a man and a woman. We
have given strong public support for the
Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme
Court. Ive also worked behind the
scenes with the National Association of
Evangelicals on these issues as they have a
bigger megaphone than any one of their
member denominations or churches.
Indeed, Wood has spoken out on
issues of life and sexuality, but will other
AG leaders follow suit? Will the Assemblies be content to let others lead in the
culture wars, or will its voice be as pronounced as its global growth?
These questions must be answered,
and certainly will if our nation continues
on its current course. But for now, as
the Assemblies of God marks its centennial, we can look back and marvel over
what the Holy Spirit has accomplished
through this denomination for 100
years. Because the truth is that, just as it
was with an assembling of faith-filled yet
assorted Pentecostals in 1914, the good
that comes out of this movement is not
despite its unique paradoxes and contrasts but because of them.
STEVE STRANG is the founder and publisher
of Charisma. If you havent already, read about
his personal connection with the Assemblies of
God on p. 14.
char ismamag.com
celebrating
40 years of ministry...
and an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit Worldwide!
lready in 2014, our fortieth year of ministry, the Holy Spirit

has continued to open up unprecedented opportunities
throughout the entire earth. In just the last 12 months He has
moved mightily in Africa, where crowds of over a half million
came to hear the Gospel and multitudes were saved and healed.
Amazing doors of ministry have also opened up in the United
Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Singapore, West Indies,
Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago. And just a few weeks ago,
we were in West Timor, where crowds of over 150,000 nearly
shut down the public streets and public transit systems of this
tiny island region.
Again and again, as I travel across America and the world,
Ive been amazed to see such a hunger for the Word and
the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Our Lords presence
and power has been incredible in each service.
The hunger for the saving and healing message of the Gospel has
never been greater. And in the coming months I will be preaching in
Indonesia, where organizers anticipate that a crowd of a half-million
people will gather to hear the Gospel of our precious Jesus and
experience the power of the Holy Spirit.
Anticipation is also growing for our upcoming services in Armenia,
Belgium, Canada, England, France, Israel, Italy, and Kiev, as well as in
sites across America, including California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
Massachusetts, and Texas.
Millions of lives have been touched during our packed-to-overflowing
Miracle Healing Services, This Is Your Day telecasts, seen daily in
200 countries, and mission outreaches around the globe. Multiplied
thousands of lost souls have prayed to accept Jesus Christ, received healing,
and have seen their families, churches, and communities changed forever.
Thanking God Almighty for the Assemblies of God and its pastors and
congregations for a century of faithfulness! What a blessing they have been.
The apostle Paul wrote, Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:24). The
faithfulness of the Assemblies of God is a powerful testimony to the high calling of sharing the Gospel,
and I join people around the globe thanking the Assemblies of God for the enormous contribution to the
glorious and eternal kingdom of God!
Visit BennyHinn.org and discover for yourself why after 40 years we are more
excited to give honor to the Holy Spirit for all that He does!
Marks
of the
BY GEORGE O. WOOD
ASSEMBLIES
As the Assemblies of God celebrates 100 years, three distinct traits stand out as part of the
denominations DNA. In this Charisma exclusive, AG General Superintendent George O. Wood
identies these characteristics that must remain for continued growth in the future.
he typo on the envelope jumped out at me: The letter was addressed to the Assemblies
of Good.
I like that, I said to myself. Yes, our goal is to be both the Assemblies of God and the
Assemblies of Good.
That set me to thinking. What are the indispensable traits of our fellowship that have marked us since
1914, when approximately 300 pastors and missionaries gathered to form this movement that has been so
wonderfully used by the Lord?
I suppose the list of such characteristics could be lengthy, but the Spirit recently impressed three distinct ones on my own heart, all stemming from Jesus Sermon on the Mount. While these three words
humility, hunger and heartare not the sum-all descriptors of the Assemblies of God, I do know that if
you remove them from our spiritual DNA we would not be witnessing the national and worldwide growth
we currently enjoy. In fact, I believe that whenever these three traits are present in any believer or church,
there is health and vitality.
1) Humility
32
RANDY BACON | ISTOCKPHOTO/BGBLUE
Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount by saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:3). I am told that, in the Greek text, Matthew could have chosen a different
word for poor. One kind of poverty is that of a person just getting by. The other kind describes a destitute
person who will die unless someone gives them food, shelter and clothing. It is this second meaning that
is used here for poorBlessed are the destitute-poor.
I became a pastor in Southern California at age 29. I grew up as a missionary kid, pastors kid and evangelists kid (same parents, just different roles at different times!). I received the finest theological training in
the world, completing my doctorate at Fuller Theological Seminary months before taking the pastorate.
The church had been through a division and was down to about 60 adults. I thought I was the answer
to what that church needed. After all, didnt I have a great heritage and education? My mother had gone
as a single missionary to China and Tibet in 1924 when she was only 26 years old. My father went 8 years
later. They courted on the boat and married when they reached Shanghai, setting off for the remote interior the day after their wedding.
Heritage? Check. Training? Definitely. Surely I could come in and save this struggling church.
But in the first six months we lost a third of the congregation. We couldnt meet our bills. I began
meeting with the deacons on Saturday mornings to eat breakfast, pray and decide what bills to pay that
week. We needed $400 a week to break even but were only receiving about $200. And unfortunately, wed
already burned through all the meager cash reserves of the church.
Pastor, one of the deacons said, we havent made a single missionary commitment that we pledged
char ismamag.com
| ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CENTENNIAL
humble people. Scripture teaches us

that God resists the proud, but gives
grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5:5). In the
same verse we are told to be clothed
with humility. We must be careful as
Pentecostals that we never boast about
ourselves, our members and our empowerment. If anyone would boast, let it be
of Christ (2 Cor. 10:17).
When John Ashcroft, my lifelong
friend, was confirmed by the United
States Senate as Attorney General, I
We must be careful as Pentecostals that we never boast about ourselves, our

members and our empowerment. If anyone would boast, let it be of Christ.
understand we wont pay your salary
either. I hadnt understood that (and we
were selling furniture out of the house to
put food on the table), but I went along.
The next day, after the morning and
evening offerings were counted they
totaled $1,354! It was such a miracle!
The next morning while praying in my
office, I asked the Lord, What is the
lesson You want me to learn? I felt the
Holy Spirit say to me, George Wood, I
am not interested in building this church
on your personality. Im interested in
building it on Mine, and if you put Me
front and center Ill take care of you.
And He did. For the next 17 years
the church grew until our missionary
commitments were $45,000 a month.
There is much fruitfulness today in
the Assemblies of God, both in the U.S.
and worldwide. In the past six years alone
weve seen over 2,000 new churches
planted in America. But there is no room
for pride. Its the Lords work, and it is
marvelous in our eyes (Ps. 118:23). The
Lord has been so good to us.
This Pentecostal movement began
in humble places of worship, among
34
said to him, If your Dad were alive, he

would be so proud of you.
John instantly corrected me, Oh,
George, Dad would never use that word
proud; he would say grateful.
The poor in spirit get the kingdom.
Its nothing in our hands that we bring.
As Mother Teresa once said: God wants
to show His greatness by using nothingness. ... It is His work. I am like a little
pencil in His hand. That is all. He does
the thinking. He does the writing. The
pencil has nothing to do with it. The
pencil has only to be allowed to be used.
In human terms, the success of our work
should not have happened.
Humility makes us totally dependent
on the Lord. We remember His words
that without Him we can do nothing.
2) Hunger
Matthew 5:6 says, Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. I recently
went to Shiloh in Israel. For nearly four
centuries, the House of the Lord was
there before David moved the capital to
Jerusalem and his son, Solomon, built
the Temple. Today archaeologists are

working on confirming the site where
the Tabernacle once stood. Our group
prayed at what is believed to be the
Tabernacle entrance, in the area where
barren Hannah poured out her soul
to the Lord. We poured out our souls
to the Lord there also, asking that He
would answer the barrenness in our own
hearts and make this centennial year for
the Assemblies of God an unparalleled
season of fruitfulness.
Amid prosperity and growth we
must avoid the danger of the Laodicean
church, which said, I am rich; I have
acquired wealth and do not need a
thing (Rev. 3:17, NIV). Their attitude was the exact opposite of hunger.
When believers and church bodies are
no longer hungry for the Lord or even
hungry to be used by Him, decay sets in.
I had the privilege of ministering at
New Life Assembly of God in Chennai,
India. Pastor David Mohan began that
church in 1973 with only seven people.
Now they average about 50,000 each
Sunday. If you go there, you discover
that on the bottom floor of their church
facility there are prayer rooms. Twentyfour hours a day, every day, people are
praying. Its no wonder the church has
grown and the Lord continues to confirm His word with signs that follow!
As a Pentecostal/charismatic movement, we treasure the baptism in the
Holy Spirit and our freedom of praying
in the Spirit with languages we didnt
learn. But Spirit baptism is an initial
event meant to propel us into empowerment to bear witness. There must not
only be initial evidence of being baptized
in the Spirit; there must be continuing
evidence of a Spirit-empowered life.
A Pentecostal church that is not
reaching people for Jesus is a contradiction in terms. We were never formed to
be a small group that gathers and says,
Here we are, Lordbless us. No!
Like Abraham, we are called to bless
the world. There is a great, unfinished
Commission to take the gospel to all the
unreached peoples of the earth. If we are
not hungry for more of Him, we will
not be effective in that task.
We must also avoid being hungry
for the wrong things. Some just want
to be thrilled at unusual phenomena or
char ismamag.com
RANDY BACON
in the six months you have been pastor.

It was true. Our commitments totaled
$257 a month, but all the missionaries
were in the $5 to $10 pledge range. We
need it more than they, I had thought.
This deacon had other plans. I think
we ought to take whatever comes in the
offering tomorrow and pay at least two
months worth of missionary commitments before we pay a single bill.
The others thought that was a great
idea, prayed over it and then said, You
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extrabiblical revelation. Because of this,

the Pentecostal movement has often collected a strange assortment of teachings.
In fact, even back in 1914, a Pentecostal
publication then compared the movement to a gas street lamp on a summer
night that attracts all manner of bugs.
In the Assemblies of God we have
sought to be guided by the analogy that
the Spirit is a river and the banks of
the river are the Scriptures. If the river
is dry, then the church is not efective;
but if the river overlows the banks, terrible damage is done. In the past 100
years, weve seen in the Pentecostal and
charismatic movements both drought
and destructive loods. he river does
its fertilizing, life-giving work when it is
strongly lowing within the boundaries
of Scripture. We seek not what is new,
but what is true! We seek not the sensational, but the Savior! And He desires to
keep illing us with the Spirit so we are
efective for Him!
Hunger is at the very core of our Pentecostal experience. During the Azusa
36
Revival, there were many churches, good

preachers, stirring liturgical services and
solid fundamentalistic doctrine. But
these Azusa pioneers were driven by a
hunger not to know about God, but to
know God; not to hear about God, but
to hear God. hey wanted to know the
Lord in His fullnessthus, the term
full gospel. hey took to heart what Jesus
declared about the Spirit: that any who
believed in Jesus could have streams
of living water low from within him
(John 7:37-39).
hey came to the Mission on Azusa
Street expecting an encounter with God
Himself. hat expectancy and the reality
of Gods presence made them oblivious
to things that seem to matter so much
today: well-appointed sanctuaries, neatly
packaged services, star-quality speakers,
homogeneity and upward mobility in
the members of the congregation, social
recognition and acceptance.
May it be said of us in our day, hey
hunger for the Lord and hunger to reach
this world for Christ.
3) Heart
Jesus also taught, Blessed are the
merciful, for they will be shown mercy
(Matt. 5:7). hroughout our 100 years,
the Assemblies of God has sought to
have a heart for peoplefor the lost, the
least and the last.
One of my missionary friends was sitting on the platform for a large crusade
he was holding in a foreign country.
He was rather proud of himself for the
size of the audience. While waiting to
preach, he reached into his pocket and
began to read a letter his godly father
had sent him. It said, Son, if you ever
lose heart for people, pack up your bags
and come home. My friend instantly
repented of his self-congratulation.
he shortest verse in the Bible is John
11:35, Jesus wept. One day it struck
me with such force. he statement
comes near the close of Jesus ministry,
at the tomb of Lazarus. After three years
of full-time ministry, the Jesus wept
statement indicates He never became
calloused toward people. Ministry was
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not something He did mechanically. He

felt for people.
Have you ever noticed what Jesus did
on the cross? A thief hangs next to Him
and says: Remember me when you
come into your kingdom. Does Jesus
ignore him? Does Jesus say to Himself,
my breath is short and I need to save my
breath for more important things? Does
Jesus turn to the man and say, Cant
you see Im dying for the sins of the
whole world? I dont have time for you.
No! Jesus lets His own sufering be interrupted by the need of another!
Are we willing to do the same?
Mark Buntain, an Assemblies of God
missionary, founded a great work in
Calcutta. Early on he knew that physical
needs of people must be tended to as
well as their spiritual needs. So he began
a clinic. here, children were successfully operated on to restore their ability
to walk.
But Mark had bigger dreams. He
wanted to build a hospital. Land was
scarce, however, in that densely packed
city. here was a plot of land on Burial

Ground Road (Park Avenue) that was
the site of a dead English cemetery.
He sought permission to build on that
land, but after two years of red tape, no
approval was forthcoming.
While driving in his car during a
rainstorm he saw a well-dressed man
trying to hail a taxi. Mark pulled over
and picked him up. A few minutes later,
Mark saw a little boy crawling like an
insect along a muddy path by the side
of the road. Mark stopped the car, got
out, picked up the boy, disappeared into
the slum and returned with the muddy
boy, placing him in the back seat. Mark
explained to the man that he had a
clinic and this boy could be made to
walk. He apologized for disappearing
for a few minutes but had needed to
ind the boys mother to get permission
to take him. Mark further explained
that someday he hoped to have land
on Burial Ground Road for a hospital
where he could help more children like
the one in the back seat.
Two weeks later, Mark unexpectedly

received word that he had been granted a
99-year lease on the land he sought. he
man he picked up was the one oicial
who could cut through all the red tape.
One act of compassion opened the
door for thousands to be ministered to.
Its the same in your life or mine. And
its what has marked the Assemblies of
God for this past century: a heart for
God, a heart for people! Marks story is
one among multiplied thousands. What
door will open because you have heart?
So here we are100 years young!
A growing, thriving body of believers
still striving to fulill the vision of our
founders to do the greatest work of
evangelism the world has ever seen with
humility, hunger and heart. 3
GEORGE O. WOOD is general superintendent of the General Council of the Assemblies
of God in the United States. He has been
chairman of the World Assemblies of God
Fellowship since 2008. You can learn more
about him at georgeowood.com.
FROM ALL OF US AT
FAITH ASSEMBLY IN ORLANDO
Congratulations On
100 YEARS
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| CHARISMA CARES
Hal Donaldson
serves a child in
the Philippines
Convoy of Hopes Mission to Feed One

How you can join the movement to help combat world hunger for just $10 a month
al Donaldson stared into the kind, tender eyes of

Mother Teresa and confessed he wasnt doing anything to care for the poor and suffering. Why would
anyone say that to a woman responsible for caring for
so many?
Simply because she had asked.
Donaldson, now president and co-founder of the international humanitarian relief organization Convoy of Hope,
left India changed foreverand its safe to say the world is
changed, too, for the better. Since 1994, just a few years after
his meeting with Mother Teresa, Convoy of Hope has aided
more than 67 million people all over the worldthats almost
two times the population of California.
As Convoy of Hope celebrates its 20th anniversary this
year, Donaldson, staff and volunteers are looking forward to a
new goal: providing food for everyone through its feedONE
program thats based on the words of Mother Teresa, who said,
If you cant feed a hundred, then just feed one.
Launched in 2013 as part of Convoy of Hopes Childrens
Feeding Initiative, feedONE looks to individuals to donate
40
$10the cost of a pizzato provide one child with nutritious

meals for an entire month.
Just about everybody can participate, whether its giving
one time or giving of themselves to commit on an annual
basis, says feedONE Executive Director Chris Sonksen.
Convoy of Hope, which is closely partnered with the
Assemblies of God USA as its humanitarian aid arm, began
working with orphanages as well as schools to feed children
back in 2007. The organization realized that parents who
normally wouldnt send their sons and daughters to a local
school would do so if it meant they would get a hot meal.
Food opens the door to education, clean water
and hope, Sonksen says. When you feed a child, you
feed a soul.
Through generous partners such as Feed My Starving
Children, Convoy of Hope has donated close to $80 million
dollars worth of supplies and food.
Like most everyone, I want to see the day when no
one is suffering because they are hungry or malnourished,
Donaldson says. The only way such a day will be possible is
char ismamag.com
CONVOY OF HOPE
BY SARAH BREED
if individuals, families, churches and

organizations continue to work together.
At Convoy of Hope, weve seen how
powerful teamwork and partnerships can
be. Already, we have more than 147,000
children in 11 nations in our feeding initiative. That wouldnt have been possible
without the support of many friends and
partners who are as committed to ending
hunger as we are.
Through the partnerships, children
are fed daily in Haiti, the Philippines,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras,
CHARISMA CARES
Want to help feed more
than ONE? Heres how.
Feeding a single child for an
entire month costs as little as
$10. And if youd like to give
more, we make it easy through
our CHARISMA CARES initiative. Send your tax-deductible
gift for feedONE to Charisma
Cares, 600 Rinehart Road,
Lake Mary, FL 32746 or give
online at charismacares.com.
Well forward 100 percent of
your gift to the program.
Guatemala, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and the Dominican

Republic. And with the help of feedONE, that number is growing day by
day. Last year churches, businesses and
students on college campuses raised
more than $250,000 to feed children
through feedONE. In 2014, these
three groups have already surpassed the
support raised in 2013.
char ismamag.com
Driven to Help
Local Solution
Donaldson, his two brothers, Steve

and Dave, and sister, Susan, know firsthand what its like to be hungry and live
in poverty. In 1969 a drunk driver killed
their father, and for more than a year
their mother was confined to a hospital
room. The Donaldson children had no
other choice but to fend for themselves
in many ways, also relying on their local
church and community.
Shortly after Hal returned from
India, the Donaldson brothers began
loading a pickup truck to pass out groceries around town. Their efforts led to
small outreach eventseventually taking
over entire parks and stadiumsto
provide medical care, clothes, food and
prayer for those in need.
Today Convoy of Hope continues
to expand its outreach as it serves
guests of honor by providing them
with free groceries, haircuts and family
portraits; equips farmers and families
with the tools necessary to produce lifesustaining crops; encourages women
to realize their value and reach their
potential through job training and education; and responds in the aftermath of
disasters. Convoy of Hope has recruited
more than 440,000 volunteers who have
worked more than 3.5 million hours
throughout the world.
However, while Convoy of Hope
meets many needs, its leaders have never
forgotten that the organization was born
out of a driving passion to give people
what most of us take for granted: a
full stomach. According to the United
Nations World Food Programme, 842
million people in the world do not have
enough to eat, and UNICEF statistics
say every 3.6 seconds a person dies
from starvation.
As overwhelming as these statistics
can be, the solution always begins at a
micro levelwith one person taking
the step to affect a single life. Starting is
simple: Visit charismacares.com to give
to feedONE. Or sign up to become an
ambassador at feedone.com and a representative will make contact. Ambassadors help with planning a feedONE
event at their college, church or business.
Its something they can actually go
and do on their own, but we provide the
resources, Sonksen says.
Because of this support, the army

of feedONE ambassadors continues to
grow as word spreads through social
media and feedONE events. Churches
such as The Oaks Fellowship Church in
Red Oak, Texas, are mobilizing believers
to get involved. The Oaks Senior Pastor,
Scott Wilson, says his church is now
sponsoring more than 1,000 children in
two Haiti orphanages.
College campuses are also finding
ways to get involved through Chi Alpha
Campus Ministries, USA. E. Scott
Martin, Chi Alphas national director,
says when Donaldson approached him
about feedONE, he never hesitated to
make the initiative the official compassionate arm of Chi Alpha. As a result,
students have raised thousands of dollars, many through creative means such
as fundraisers involving participants
jumping into a pool of icy water, or student challenges to give up Starbucks a
few times each month.
Martin says that with more than
28,000 Chi Alpha members in 300
plus chapters, he expects to see millions of dollars eventually pouring
into feedONE as students understand
their $10 as well as prayer can make
a difference.
Students realize they are a very
indulgent generation, Martin says.
But they are willing to give up some
of their indulgences to feed hungry
kids. They are much more sensitive to
social issues than probably any other
preceding generation.
Hal Donaldson agrees, and though
feedONE is still in the beginning stages,
he knows the road to eradicating world
hunger starts with communities of likeminded, proactive individuals.
When we work together to feed
those who are hungry, we take part in
giving people hope for a better life too,
he says. Thats a powerful thing to be
a part of. I know when people helped
feed our family it made an immediate
and lasting impact that is still with
us today.
SARAH BREED is a freelance journalist from
Lakeland, Florida. She and her husband,
Josh, are moving back to Israel, where they
first met, this month.
41
L I G H T S TO C K | I S TO C K P H OTO/C R E AT I V E - H AT
| SPIRITUAL INTIMACY
Are You a Friend
OF
THE
Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit isnt strange. Hes a wonderful, kind and sensitive
Personand heres how a real friendship with Him can change your life.
BY ROBERT MORRIS
grew up in a small Texas town. As a typical small community in America, my hometown had a variety of churches. We also had Christian television. As a kid, these two
things gave me a good exposure to different streams of Christianity.
My admittedly shallow, somewhat skeptical observations led me to conclude early in life
that Christians who talked a lot about the Holy Spirit generally fell into one of two groups:
one in which the women didnt seem to wear any makeup at all, and the other in which
they invariably wore way too much makeup. For a long time I figured that any woman who
decided she wanted a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit faced a tough dilemma and had to ask
herself, Am I going to stop wearing makeup, or am I going to start wearing more?
Im joking, of course. But these stereotypes are indeed alive and thriving today among huge
numbers of Jesus-loving people. Many are sincerely reluctant to embrace the opportunity of a lifetransforming relationship with the Holy Spirit because of such stereotypes.
Who do you think is the author of these misconceptions? It is Satanthe one who wants you to
think that inviting the Holy Spirit into your life has little to do with friendship. Think about it: If
the coming of the Helper, the Holy Spirit, is indeed a wonderful thing for believers, doesnt it make
sense that the devil would want to keep us from experiencing that help? I am convinced that one
of Satans primary strategies for keeping people from experiencing all the amazing help and benefits
that come from a relationship with the Holy Spirit is to convince us that doing so will make us
weirdreally weird!
Of course, Satan has a lot of help in reinforcing that lie. The world has its share of truly eccentric
people, and some of them are Spirit-filled Christians. People sometimes do bizarre things and then
claim that the Holy Spirit made them do it. He didnt. The Holy Spirit isnt weird. I know this is
true because I know Him well. Hes a good friend of mine.
However, this particular lie of the enemy harms us more than we realize. On one hand we see all
the biblical evidence that the Holy Spirit is a blessing and a helper. On the other hand the enemy
shows us goofy people doing goofy things in the name of the Spirit. As a result, we think, This Holy
Spirit stuff is probably good, but only in small doses. You just dont want to get too carried away with it.
In essence we tell the Holy Spirit, OK, Ill open the door of my life a few inches so You can stick
Your foot in. But Im not letting You come all the way in, because theres no telling what Youll do. I
dont trust You to behave Yourself.
How insulting is that?
No! The Holy Spirit isnt strange. He is a wonderful, kind, and sensitive person. And a real friendcontinued
ship with Him can change your life.
char ismamag.com
43
Amazing Beneits
When the Holy Spirit becomes your
friend, He brings four amazing beneits
into your life. Lets look at these briely.
1) Power. Acts 1:8 says, You shall
receive power when the Holy Spirit has
come upon you. Sadly, many Christians
struggle all their days to live the Christian life, and they experience all kinds
of failure, precisely because they try to
live it in their own strength. hey are
saved, yet live lives of defeat and ineffectiveness, die and go to heaven. But
they spend their entire lives without
ever using the only power that makes
victorious living possible.
2) Love. he Bibles famous love
44
chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, is sandwiched between two chapters that deal

with the gifts of the Spirit. According
to Romans 5:5, the Holy Spirit makes
it possible for us to walk in the love of
God toward others: Now hope does
not disappoint, because the love of God
has been poured out in our hearts by the
Holy Spirit who was given to us. Perhaps the reason many Christians struggle
and fail to walk in love is that they never
open their hearts to the Holy Spirit, who
holds the role of pouring out Gods love
within them.
3) Fruit. According to Galatians
5:22, when we allow the Holy Spirit
to fully dwell in our lives, He produces
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and a whole host of other good
things. In fact, Paul opens this particular
discussion about the Holy Spirit with the
words, I say then: Walk in the Spirit (v.
16). And he closes it the same way with
the words, If we live in the Spirit, let us
also walk in the Spirit (v. 25).
As a pastor, I frequently encounter
people who ask me the secret to being
a person of greater peace or patience
or gentleness or kindness. I tell them
its no secret. All those qualities and
more are the natural byproducts of
enjoying the Holy Spirits presence and
fellowship. his is what Paul means by
walking in the Spirit.
char ismamag.com
LIGHTSTOCK
Wherever the Holy Spirit is allowed to work in a person or

situation, encouragement, light, life and healing come.
4) Gifts. The fruit of the Spirit is a

gift. The qualities He produces in our
lives are like packages from heaven itself,
filled with blessings, miracles and power.
The earliest New Testament believers
(see Acts 2) who threw the door open
to the Holy Spirit turned the world
upside down! Thousands came into the
kingdom, miracles happened and lives
were transformed everywhere they went.
Is it any wonder Satan is terrified by
the thought of Gods people becoming
fully open to the help of the Holy
Spirit? We shouldnt be surprised that
the devil has done his best to make all
this controversial.
However, abuse or misuse of any of
the Spirits gifts should never cause you
to shy away from a full experience and a
daily walk with the Holy Spirit, because
you cant live a fully productive Christian
life without Him.
The Friendship of the Spirit

Missing out on the gifts the Spirit
brings is unfortunate. However, missing
out on His friendship is tragic. I discovered this truth in an unusual way early in
my Christian life.
I wasnt born again when Debbie and
I first got married. Nine months after I
made Debbie my wife, I made Jesus my
Lord and experienced Him as Savior.
While this was a powerful and transforming event, I still had a lot of emotional issues for which I needed healing
and restoration. For one, I was insecure
and even afraid of other people. I usually put on an outer show of confidence,
but it was always a thin facade of
cockiness covering a large amount of
low self-esteem.
When we were first married, I used
to dread Debbies dragging me to
Christmas parties. She naturally has a
happy and outgoing personality, and she
would invariably run off to chat with a
friend while I was left to fend for myself.
At the end of the night, when we
got in the car to go home, Id be upset
with her. She couldnt understand why.
She didnt know she had done anything
wrong because, of course, she hadnt. But
I would get a pathetic tone in my voice
and say, You left me!
What do you mean, Robert? I was
there all night!
char ismamag.com
You left me. And I was all alone.

And ... and people came up to me ... and
talked to me. It was horrible.
Were talking about a grown man here!
However, something remarkable happened when I entered into a real, personal and dynamic relationship with the
Holy Spirit. I remember the first time we
went to one of those dreaded social gatherings after my friendship with the Holy
Spirit began. There I was, standing alone
with a glass of punch in my hand and
thinking, She did it to me again. Shes off
chatting away, and here I amalone and
defenseless. Then I heard the voice of the
Holy Spirit clearly inside of me, saying,
Im here, Robert, and youre not alone!
The Holy Spirit and I started a conversation, one of the first of more than
I can count. On this night, when the
Spirit spoke, my eyes noticed a man
across the room. The Holy Spirit said,
Do you see that man? He got a very bad
report from his doctor the other day. Hes
afraid hes going to die and leave his young
family destitute. You could pray for him.
So I did.
Next I noticed a silver-haired woman,
and the Holy Spirit commented, She
lost her husband a few months ago. Shes
battling loneliness and crushing grief. Lets
pray for her.
At one point a man walked up
and started a conversation. Instead of
looking for a window to climb out of, I
asked the Holy Spirit to use me to bless
or help this person. The Holy Spirit
prompted me to ask him about an area
of his life that seemed quite personal.
Still, I obeyed the Spirits prompting
and said, Are you doing OK with...?
and then mentioned what the Holy
Spirit had revealed to me. The man
looked at me in shock for a few seconds and then began to cry. I had the
humble privilege of praying for him and
giving him some desperately needed
encouragement.
Whats more, I didnt interact with
this gentleman in a way that made me
seem weird or made him feel humiliated.
Thats not the way of the Holy Spirit!
I can say this from my experience with
Him: He is gentle and kind.
Wherever He is allowed to work in
a person or situation, encouragement,
light, life and healing come. continued
45
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How the Spirit Speaks

One Sunday I had just concluded my
message and invited those who wanted
to receive Christ or needed prayer to
come forward to the altar. A number
of people were responding to that call,
but my eyes fell upon one gentleman
in particular. To my knowledge, I had
never seen him before, and there was
nothing about his facial expression or
manner that would indicate why he was
coming forward.
Nevertheless, as I looked at him, I
heard the familiar voice of the Holy
Spirit telling me something. I knew from
experience that the Spirit reveals such
things only because He wants to heal,
restore, encourage and bless.
So I stepped toward the man and
said, Sir, as you were coming forward,
the Lord told me something He wants
you to know. He told me that you
feel like the prodigal son, because you
have been away from Him for a very
long time. He just wanted me to give
you a message from HimWelcome
home, son.
Instantly the mans eyes illed with
tears, and he fell into my arms. On
behalf of the father who ran out to meet
the returning prodigal of Jesuss parable,
I put him in a bear hug that depicted
in tangible terms the loving, forgiving
embrace that awaits every person who
turns to God.
What I did not know was that this
was the mans irst time inside the walls
of a church in nearly 20 years. As he told
me later, he had been raised in a Christian home and had given his life to Jesus
as a boy. His Christian wife had been
praying for him. But he had strayed and
been running from God for a long, long
time. True to form, the enemy had been
lying to him and telling him God would
not receive him if he returned: Youve
done too much. Youve been too sinful. God
has given up on you.
So nervous was he about his return
to church that while driving there he
pulled over into an empty parking lot.
When his wife asked him what was
wrong, he turned to her and said, Im
like the prodigal son. But I just dont
know if God will really have me back.
Im afraid. With some encouragement
from her, he continued on to the service.
46
And because the Holy Spirit still speaks,

it was my privilege to bring him a very
speciic, amazingly redemptive word
from a loving heavenly Father.
Its true: he Holy Spirit wants to
speak clearly to us just as much as we
want to hear clearly from Him. With
that said, however, I want to give you
some keys to hearing the voice of the
Spirit. If you know how He talks, then
you can know how to listen.
Through His Word

First, the Holy Spirit is a person. We
shouldnt think of our relationship with
Him as anything more complicated than
a relationship with any other person.
When you meet new people and want to
build relationships with them, you have
to get to know them. You gradually learn
about their backgrounds, their likes and
dislikes, their habits and passions. he
more you learn about them, the better
you know them. he same is true with
the Holy Spirit.
What if the person you just met had
written a book about his life? If you
wanted to know what he was all about,
wouldnt it make sense to read what hed
written? he Holy Spirit was the inspiration behind every word of the Bible.
So the starting point for a relationship
with Him is the Word. In its pages we
learn how God walks, talks, thinks and
acts. As we read and study Scripture, we
discover His personality and character. If
you want to get to know God, you have
to read His Word.
Pouring out your heart to God in
prayer is the way you can talk to God.
But renewing your mind by reading
His Word is the most basic way you can
allow God to talk to you.
Through His Voice

In addition to speaking through His
Word, God also speaks to individuals.
He hasnt been giving His people the
silent treatment for the past 2,000 years!
Hebrews 13:8 tells us that God doesnt
change; He is the same yesterday,
today, and forever. his being true, why
is it so hard to accept that God is still
talking to us today?
Jesus Himself talked about the voice
of the Spirit in John 10: Most assuredly,
I say to you, he who does not enter the
char ismamag.com
sheepfold by the door, but climbs up

some other way, the same is a thief and
a robber. But he who enters by the door
is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the
doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear
his voice; and he calls his own sheep by
name and leads them out. And when
he brings out his own sheep, he goes
before them; and the sheep follow him,
for they know his voice. Yet they will
by no means follow a stranger, but will
flee from him, for they do not know the
voice of strangers. ... My sheep hear My
voice, and I know them, and they follow
Me (vv. 1-5, 27).
Five times in these verses, Jesus refers
either to the shepherd talking or to the
sheep hearing the shepherds voice. The
sheep dont just hear his word; they
hear his voice. We are Jesus sheep, and
according to His Word, we can and
should hear His voicethe voice of
the Spirit. When we hear it, we should
know it.
Debbie and I were married in 1980,
but weve known each other since
elementary school. Once in a while shell
call me from a phone number I dont
recognize on caller ID. On those occasions, when I answer the call and cautiously say, Hello? I hear a voice on the
other end say, Hey! That single word
is all I need. My voice and inflection
instantly change to one expressing affection and familiarity.
Without hesitation I respond, Hey,
honey. How are you? I know the voice
of my sweet bride. Ive been listening to
it for more than 30 years. After all the
time weve spent together, talking and
just living, I know her voice better than
anyone elses on earth.
We can know the voice of the Spirit
that well too. We can instantly recognize His voice beyond any doubt
when He calls our names and speaks
direction or encouragement to us. And
dont think that the Holy Spirit only
speaks to important or super-spiritual
sheep in the Shepherds flock. You can
know Gods voice and hear Him just
as clearly as the most famous evangelist
hears Him.
We can come boldly before the
throne of God through the access purchased for us through the blood of Jesus.
And we can come to know His voice of
char ismamag.com
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Church Senior Pastor Robert Morris explain
why the Holy Spirit is neither weird nor
spooky at notweird.charismamag.com
reply, because Jesus sent the Holy Spirit

to speak on behalf of the Father and
the Son. Anytime you meet someone
who really knows the voice of God, you
quickly realize that person has spent a
lot of time with Him. Getting in Gods
presencedwelling there, living there
and listening thereis the way to practice hearing Gods voice.
In the early phases of this learning
process, many believers say that the voice
of the Spirit sounds a lot like their own
thoughts or their own self-talk. Theres
a reason for this. When the Holy Spirit
wants to get a message to you, He must
communicate to your born-again human
spirit and from there to your mind. So
youre not likely to hear an audible voice.
Instead, it comes as a thought. So its easy
to question whether the message is your
own thought or something the Spirit is
telling you.
With time and familiarity, however,
you can learn to clearly distinguish
between thoughts that are your own
and those that come from the Spirit.
The Shepherd still speaks to His sheep,
calling us by name. Keep spending time
with Him so that the next time He whispers, Hey, in your ear, you wont have to
look at the caller ID. Youll know right
away that God is speaking to you. The
more you hear, recognize and acknowledge His voice, the easier it will become
to hear Him every time He speaks.
What an amazing privilege to have
the Holy Spirit with and in us. He can
be a trusted friend who wants to make
everything better. The opportunity to
have this member of the Trinity as an
ever-present friend is a privilege beyond
human comprehension.
ROBERT MORRIS is the founding senior
pastor of Gateway Church in Dallas/Fort
Worth. He is the best-selling author of several
books, including The Blessed Life. Excerpted
from The God I Never Knew by Robert Morris
by permission of WaterBrook Press, a division
of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No
part of this excerpt may be reproduced or
reprinted without permission in writing from
the publisher.
47
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| GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
Only 25 percent of
American Christians
believe in the existence
of the Holy Spirit, in
part because theyve
relegated themselves
to the sidelines as
mere extras in Gods
kingdom work. But heres
how the Holy Spirit gives
us eternal significance.
LIGHTSTOCK
ou cant believe in all

that Spirit mumbojumbo! my friend
Kevin said. We were
having an intense
conversation over
whether the Holy
Spirit was real or not.
Just seems like a bunch of nonsense, he groused, rolling his eyes and
folding his arms.
Now, Kevin wasnt a hardened atheist
or a confused agnostic. He was a selfidentified believer in Jesus who went
to church with his family on occasion.
He had no problem relating to God as
a heavenly Father or believing that Jesus
died for his sins. But the notion that
God is presently at work in us by the
person of the Holy Spirit sounded like
religious jargon to him.
We may be tempted to chalk this
up as an extreme case. Regrettably this
example is the rule, not the exception.
The Barna Group found that only 25
percent of American Christians believe
char ismamag.com
BY JEFF KENNEDY
in the existence of the Holy Spirit!
Barna also found that younger
generations were less likely to
believe in and engage with the
Spirit. This statistic is alarming
when we consider the mass
exodus from church life among
18- to 34-year-olds in America.
This means that for most professing Christians the Holy Spirit
is nothing more than a symbol of
the faitha dove on a stainedglass window. This Spirit-less
version of Christianity is dangerous for several reasons.
First, it compromises biblical
truth. Jesus told Nicodemus
that unless he was born again by
the Spirit, he would never enter
Gods kingdom (John 3:3, 5-8).
The church was born on the Day
of Pentecost, when the Spirit of
God baptized and filled every
believer (Acts 2:2). The Christian
faith is a lot of things, but it is
nothing without the Spirit. We may
engrave His name in the bedrock of our
historic creeds, but without His presence
we are not of Christ at all.
Second, Spirit-less Christianity jettisons
our mandate. Christianity is not a nice
family religion. It is a living, active and
missional enterprise. God did not send
Jesus so that you and I could inherit a
harmless delusion that makes us feel
better when were sad. If we make the
mistake of treating the Spirit as nothing
more than a theological abstraction, an
amorphous concept or a vague idea, we
will utterly fail to disciple the nations
and the next generation. This is why
Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Fathers promiseGods
empowering presence (Acts 1:4-8). Take
the Holy Spirit away from the church,
and all were left with is a grace-deficient, family-based cult.
How did we get here? I suggest that
the widespread incredulity of the next
generation is the fruit of the previous
generations marginalization of the Spirit.
Weve ignored Him as a present reality

in our midst even while insisting that
parishioners learn rightly about Him. In
effect, weve barred would-be worshippers and ministers of the gospel from the
fullness of the Spirits experience while
teaching them the Apostles Creed.
Though the reasons for this are multifaceted, a prominent culprit is a particularly faulty paradigm that dominates
American churches today. Somehow
weve bought into the idea that there are
superstar ministers who are gifted by the
Holy Spirit to do Gods real work
and then theres the rest of us.
Let me explain.
Red-Shirt Christians
As a kid, I was mesmerized by the
cult classic TV show Star Trek. I wanted
to be Captain Kirk and command the
starship Enterprise. I wanted to spend
my life as an intrepid explorer, voyaging
through space, going on away missions,
meeting new aliens, killing Klingons
all with inspiring theme music playing
in the background.
After watching the first 20 episodes
of Star Trek, I began to notice certain
patterns in the show. Almost every episode had a crisis of cosmic scope where
the spaceship Enterprise was threatened
with destruction and Kirk and Spock
had to figure out an ingenious solution.
And no episode would be complete
without an away team beaming down to
the planet surface. The away teams usually consisted of Kirk in a khaki shirt,
Spock and McCoy in blue shirts, and a
couple of security guards in red shirts.
I noticed the red-shirt security officers
almost never came back from away
missions but would get killed by the
bad guys. The main characters always
seemed to be smart enough or fortunate
enough to cheat death. But those poor
red-shirt guys just couldnt keep up. At
some point the shows creators decided
that the red-shirts were expendable.
These disposable extras existed to prop
up the stars. In fact, the red-shirt guys
49
usually didnt even have names.

In the same way the Christian church
is rife with this kind of red-shirt mentality. Somehow weve gotten in our
minds that the masses exist to prop up
a few, fortunate and gifted starlets so
they can accomplish the miraculous or
achieve big things for the kingdom.
Paul actually forbade this undue
regard for human leaders in his letter
to the Corinthians. Now obviously, its
OK to give leaders their due honor, and
Paul recognizes this elsewhere. But when
it comes to the issue of giftedness, Paul
made it clear that no one is expendable
in Gods household.
God has given all believers Spirit
manifestations, or gifts, and all believers
now participate in the building of the
kingdom of God on earth. he word
for gifts in the New Testament is charis,
which is the Greek word for grace.
We receive Jesus grace at salvation,
but then the Spirit gives us extra grace
to empower us for service. his is the
kingdom agenda.
his program for humanity is called

ministry. Contrary to the popular
use of the term, ministry is not for a
select group of people. Ministry is for
all believers. Paul told the Ephesians
that the preachers job is to outit all
believers for ministry in Gods kingdom
(Eph. 4:11-12). But before Paul encouraged the Jewish and Gentile Christians
in Rome to discover and deploy their
spiritual gifts, he spelled out the qualiications for every believer in Chapter
12 of his letter to the Romans. hough
there are some specialized requirements
for certain ministries, the following are
Pauls qualiications for all believers in
discovering their spiritual ministry in the
body of Christ.
1) Ministry starts with right living.

Paul asserted that the Roman Christians irst task was to align their priorities and their lifestyle with kingdom
values as they surrender to God in
well-reasoned worship. He stated, I
appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies

as a living sacriice, holy and acceptable
to God, which is your spiritual worship
(Rom. 12:1, ESV). After establishing
that mankind is altogether lost (Rom.
1-3), he makes his case for justiication
by grace through faith alone (Rom. 3-5).
his salvation experience is an empowering grace, which has severed our ties
to sin, broken sins power over us (Rom.
6-7) and has now enabled us to walk in
the newness of life by the Spirit (Rom.
8). his salvation is the gospel to both
the Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 9-11). And
now both people groups must continually walk in the newness of Spirit life,
empowered to serve the body of Christ
through Spirit graces, or what we call
spiritual gifts (Rom. 12).
2) Ministry involves
costly obedience.
Believers today have no grid through
which to understand the importance
of sacriice in the ancient world. Paul
calling our lives a living sacriice was
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truly a novel idea. Ancient sacriice was a

messy enterprise, and worshippers were
required to bring their best ofering.
Moses commanded the Jews, You will
be accepted only if your ofering is a
male animal with no defects. It may be a
bull, a ram, or a male goat (see Leviticus
1:1-3, NLT).
his commitment to pure sacriices
was engrained in their Jewish culture.
Bringing blemished or diseased lambs
or weak and scrawny cattle to be slaughtered at the temple was unthinkable in
the irst century. Whether you brought
the ofering or bought the ofering,
either way, sacriicing the best would
cost you something. It wasnt cheap.
But cheap is a deeply rooted American value. Even the word value has been
hijacked and has become a synonym for
cheap. I love to take my wife out for
the occasional splurge on an expensive
meal. But most of the time Im content
with a dollar hot dog at Costco. I also
occasionally break the budget for a nice
article of clothing, but I usually shop at
discount stores. And I confess that even

in discount stores Im looking at the
clearance rack. (I told you I was cheap.)
I believe frugality is a virtue, not a
vice. But my obsession with value at a
low cost to me, the consumer, is inherently at war with my life of spiritual
sacriice. Paul expected us to view our
very bodies, and our very selves, as the
living, realized temple of God (1 Cor.
3:10; 1 Cor. 6; 2 Cor. 5). his involves
extravagant worship as we give ourselves
completely to Him. God is not the least
bit interested in the chump change of
bargain-basement oferings.
Before Paul jumped into the issue
of Spirit gifts, he wanted to make sure
the Romans knew that they all, Jew and
Gentile alike, had received the Spirit,
and this means they were to be walking,
talking, living sacriices.
3) Ministry lows from a

transformed heart.
Paul continued, Do not be
conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your

mind, that by testing you may discern
what is the will of God, what is good
and acceptable and perfect (Rom.
12:2, ESV). Perhaps the single most
frequent question believers ask is how
to discover Gods will for their life. Yet
few turn to this passage, partly because
it doesnt seem particularly impressive.
No apocalyptic dreams or mountaintop
revelations are needed for discovering
Gods willjust the homespun advice
of trial and erroryou test and approve
Gods revealed will in your particular
circumstance. Paul did not tell the
Romans to discover the will of God
for their lives. Instead he told them to
test and approve the already revealed
will of God. It is Gods will for you to
be holy. And it is Gods will for you
to engage with your spiritual gifts in
ministry. Until you are doing that, dont
bother asking God for your dream
spouse or your dream job. Live holy and
plug in to your local church; then seek
continued
Him for the speciics.
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12729
God is omnipresent, meaning His

presence is everywhere all the time.
There is nowhere He isnt. But a temple
is a place where Gods manifest presence
rests. The Hebrew word for this idea of
a deity resting in a temple was shevat,
where we get the word Sabbath. Thats
what deities did in the ancient world
they rested in their temples.
The temple is also where that deity
displays his power through his priesthood. But Paul taught that every believer
and the church corporately are the living
temple of God. That temple is the place
where Gods Spirit dwells among men.
Thats where God displays His power.
Thats where God shows His stuff and
reveals what He can do in an ordinary
human life.
We are the place where heaven and
earth overlap. We are the nexus between
two worlds. N.T. Wright puts it this way
in his book, Simply Christian: Those in
whom the Spirit comes to live are Gods
new temple. They are, individually and
corporately, places where heaven and
earth meet. So what kind of behavior

ought to accompany a person who is a
living holy place indwelt by the Holy
Spirit? Naturally, it is holy living as the
Spirit transforms you into the image
of Jesus.
4) We discover our ministry

through accurate self-assessment.
Paul goes on to say to the Romans,
Do not think of yourself more highly
than you ought, but rather think of
yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God
has given you (Rom. 12:3). No one
is less self-aware than a drunken fool.
When youre half-lit, youre way out of
touch with your limits. You think you
can drive yet you cant even find your
keys. You imagine yourself to be hot
stuff, when in reality you are a drunken,
stinking mess who needs to go sleep it
off and take a shower.
Paul told the Romans that they
needed sober judgment, or accurate
self-assessment. This means we need to
be in touch with our levels, with our

limits and with our passions. Simply
put, know thyself.
When I first recommitted my life to
Jesus as a teenager, I thought for sure
God wanted me to be a healing evangelist like Reinhard Bonnke. Bonnkes
fiery preaching seemed to be touched by
heaven itself. I thought for sure that was
Gods will for me. However, the Spirit
had other plans. As I prayed and sought
the Lord, the Holy Spirit revealed Himself in an unusual way.
Thats putting it mildly.
As a teenager, one Friday evening
I knelt on the floor of my room and
opened my NIV Study Bible on the
bed. I began singing and worshipping
God, and thats when it happened. Gods
presence invaded my space. I fell on
the floor, unable to move. The presence
of the Spirit was so powerful in those
moments that it felt like the spatiotemporal world had zipped open, allowing
Gods glory to flood the room. It was a
feeling of awe, wonder, bliss and terror
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all rolled into one. I sensed that I was

in the presence of a Being who could
command the very elements of nature
a Being who could speak and the
very cloth of the natural world would
respond instantly to His sovereign will.
his experience inspired a wondrous
dread in me.
In that moment, as I lay stunned
under the power of the Spirit, suddenly
God poured into my soul a rapacious
hunger for His living Word. he more I
worshipped, the more this hunger illed
me. I wanted to know His truth so badly
that I thought I would burst. It was in
that moment that God birthed in me
a desire for what I believe is a scholarly
knowledge of His Word.
Now, God isnt too impressed with
scholarly knowledge. For that matter,
God isnt too impressed with rocket science or quantum theory, either. Im sure
God is pleasantly amused at all of our
advanced sciences and disciplines.
But that is the moment when a
gift and hunger for wisdom and godly
knowledge entered me. And I have never

been the same. It is an unquenchable ire
in my very self. I want to help believers
experience a love that overlows as they
grow in knowledge and depth of insight
into Gods truth (Phil. 1:9). Before that
moment I was a high-school dropout. I
entered college on academic probation.
But I went on to get four post-secondary
degrees, graduating magna cum laude
with all four of them. Before I received
the gift, I had no desire for learning, no
hunger for knowledge growth. After I
received the gift, I couldnt turn it of. I
still cant.
As it turns out, I havent preached in
foreign lands that much. And I havent
performed many physical healings at the
direction of the Lord, either. Not that
I didnt try. In my earlier days I had to
help a lot of crippled people back into
their wheelchairs after praying for them.
My desire to be a healing evangelist
was not answered. God had another
path for me. And I am serving Him with
those gifts. Now, my gifts and calling
arent any less important than those of

Billy Graham or Reinhard Bonnke,
which leads us to our inal observation
about Spirit graces from the Romans
passage. After Paul told the Romans they
needed to view themselves with sober
judgment, he wanted every believer to
discover their unique spiritual contribution to the body of Christ.
5) Every believer is gifted

for Spirit ministry.
Paul continues his argument: For as
in one body we have many members,
and the members do not all have the
same function, so we, though many, are
one body in Christ, and individually
members one of another. Having gifts
that difer according to the grace given
to us, let us use them (Rom. 12:4-6,
ESV). Notice that last phrase, Let us
use them.
We see in this passage that the Spirit
graces have a functional purpose (v.
4), are of varying types, like diferent
body parts (v. 5), and they should be
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employed not forbidden. My favorite

word in those three verses is the word
function. This is because I have seen a
lot of dysfunctional Christianity in my
day. Paul used this term together with
the analogy of a body with many functioning parts.
Marriages and families implode and
relationships self-destruct because the
members of that family are not performing their function. Paul taught that
husbands and wives are to submit to one
another out of reverence for Jesus (Eph.
5:21). Men are supposed to submit to
their wives by sacrificing themselves the
way Jesus did for the church (v. 25).
Women are to submit to their husbands
by voluntarily serving the way the
church gives itself for Jesus (v. 24). But
when men dont perform their function,
they ruin their marriages. When theyre
selfish, lazy, lustful and refuse to submit
through sacrifice, then they blow up
their relationships. And when women
dont submit through service and mutual
respect, then they fail to fulfill their
function. The result is malfunction.

The same is true for children. When
kids are allowed to run roughshod
over their parents in disrespect, when
children become indulged little terrors,
families suffer for it. Its because parts
of the family arent functioning; theyre
not performing their intended role.
Again, this always leads to dysfunction.
This is why Paul tells the Romans that
every person needs to operate according
to their gifts. Because this is the only
way the body, the family of Christ, can
operate as it was intended.
Youre Not Expendable

So when, for example, you see a
church that is dominated by one charismatic superstar who treats everyone else
like expendable red-shirts, then you
are witnessing a glitchy, fatally flawed
church paradigm. Conversely, whenever you see a congregation without
godly leaders who prophetically speak
into the lives of the church, then again
youre witnessing a dysfunctional church
family. Though there are varying degrees

of gifts in each local body, and though
there are some gifts that are more helpful
in building community than others,
everyone has something to contribute. No
one is expendable in Jesus household. All
believers play a critical role in the expansion of Gods kingdom message into
the world.
God doesnt have any red-shirts on
His team. You arent disposable, and
youre not an extra in Gods kingdom
plot. You have great worth and value to
God. But the prerequisite to discovering
and deploying your gifts is a pursuit
of holiness resulting in inner transformation, sober self-assessment and an
open heart.
JEFF KENNEDY is executive pastor of adult
ministries and discipleship at Eastpoint, a
large and thriving church in the Pacific Northwest. He also serves as an adjunct professor
of religion at Liberty University Online and is
author of Father, Son and the Other One,
from which this article was adapted.
Impostor exposes the perfection trap, which just leads to burnout, and
uncovers the lies, thinking errors, social pressures, and other factors that
are holding you back from the authentic life GOD WANTS FOR YOU.
AVAILABLE NOW IN
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| HOLY SPIRIT & CULTURE
Darren Wilsons latest film, Holy Ghost, raises

the bar in highlighting Gods supernatural power
onscreen. But its the behind-the-scenes stories
that indicate another emerging movement
among believers and unbelievers alike.
S
Filmmaker
Darren Wilson
60
ome ilms make you laugh.

Others make you cry, shriek
with fear or feel warm inside.
But the type Darren Wilson
creates combines all this in
such a way that moves audiences from
lukewarm Christianity to full-hearted
conviction. In fact, souls have been saved
after watching his ilms. he walking
dead have come to spiritual life, and the
experience of viewing his unscripted
work has softened even the most
cynical skeptics.
hose arent the results youd expect
from someone who describes himself as
the least religious person youre going
to meet. Indeed, Wilson is anything
but lashy, charismatic or spiritually
lamboyantcertainly not a guy youd
pick to lead an underground movement
of radical Christians bent on seeing
Gods supernatural power displayed in
everyday life. Hes stout, wears glasses,
speaks in a matter-of-fact tone and
plays the college professor role well after
spending 10 years as an instructor at
Judson University in northwest Chicago.
Yet over the past ive years, Wilson,
38, has independently produced
a ilm trilogy that has developed a
rabid following, despite challenging
lukewarm Christians to shake of their

complacency. His work suggests that
underneath a layer of programmatic
dogma and ironclad doctrines, the power
of a living God is alive and yearning to
touch people where they are. And to put
it in his own words, he plans to make
Jesus famous.
In his irst ilm, Finger of God,
Wilson went on a global trek in search
of Gods movement in the supernatural.
he 2007 release (sold mostly on
Amazon.com) was an underground success, as was his 2010 follow-up, Furious
Love, which examined Gods intense
compassion for humanity demonstrated through street healings, words
of wisdom and gentle gestures of love
rendered on random strangers. A third
ilm, Father of Lights, produced in 2012,
appeared to complete Wilsons search
for a Savior as it came full circle to show
how divinely appointed everything is,
including so-called chance meetings.
I thought I was done after Father of
Lights, says Wilson during an interview
in his production studio months before
the release of his latest ilm project,
Holy Ghost. Premiering Sept. 6 (with
a second installment next year), Holy
Ghost is a deinitive wake-up call for the
sleeping church. While Wilsons irst
three ilms were more about a search
for God, this is a proclamation that the
Lord is God. he ilmmaker says he was
fully led by the Holy Spirit in directing
and producing it.
God gives me butterlies to let me to
know [what] to include in the ilms and
where to travel next, he says. When
He gives me an idea for a movie, Im in a
fog about it for a while. Its a weird little
char ismamag.com
WANDERLUST PRODUC TIONS
BY LISA JONES TOWNSEL
WANDERLUST PRODUC TIONS
dance. But I have a friendship with God,

and friends talk to each other. So I fully
expect for Him to talk to me. How He
does that is up to Him.
For the new release, Wilson takes
viewers on an international journey
through India, Turkey, South Africa,
Brazil, Italy, Greece, Monaco and the
United States to show how the Holy
Spirit is working in the lives of people
around the globe. Interestingly enough,
though not all of the people touched
by the Spirit on camera are believers,
theyre all visibly stunned by His
powerful presence.
Similar to Wilsons prior films, Holy
Ghost includes periodic commentaries
from a number of renowned ministers
and musicians, including charismatic
leaders Bill Johnson, Randy Clark and
R.T. Kendall, as well as Christian artists
Michael W. Smith, Jake Hamilton and
Jeremy Riddle. Sony Pictures Senior
Vice President of Production DeVon
Franklin also appears, as does The Shack
author William P. Young. Wilson invited
them all to contribute, and they agreed

to do so non grata, though some were
more familiar with his work than others.
R.T. Kendall had never heard of
me, but his son was a huge fan, Wilson
says. So he said yes based on his
sons enthusiasm.
Others, like Johnson, who was the
first person Wilson interviewed for his
films, have been fans of his work since
the first day.
Ive loved all of them, the senior
pastor of Bethel Church in Redding,
California, says. They are raw, real
and unpretentious.
Celebrity Draw
What has surprised Wilson most is
the unsolicited attention his films have
garnered despite limited marketing dollars. He has appeared on Sid Roths Its
Supernatural broadcast and on TBN.
Outside Christian circles, the interest has
been just as surprising. Talk show host
Ellen DeGeneres requested a copy of
one film, though how she heard about it
remains a mystery to Wilson. And when

he reached out to rock star/actor Lenny
Kravitz, the entertainer made time to
speak to him.
Hes a huge fan of my films, and
he was always willing to sit down for
an interview, but his schedule is like
nothing Ive ever experienced before,
Wilson recounts. So it took a very long
time. The rest of the cast are friends and
are either familiar with my work or have
been in my other films.
Yet the real celebs of Wilsons film
are the masses of regular people who
support them. Wilson used the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.com to
raise the money needed to produce
and market Holy Ghost and to finance
the upcoming Holy Ghost Tour. The
response was indicative of just how
much his films connect with audiences:
Within 45 days, fans pledged more than
$357,000, making it the highest-funded
Christian film in Kickstarter history.
As with all his productions, Wilson
narrates yet lets his lens tell the stories,
DISCOVER THE MANY WAYS

SATAN TRIES TO SILENCE US AND LEARN
HOW TO STAND STRONG AGAINST HIM.
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which this time range from getting

unprecedented access into a Hindu
temple to people experiencing healings
and finding faith in unlikely places. The
director mingles drugs, rock n roll,
skepticism and salvation into an unexpected package that touches an array
of emotional nerves by the time the
credits roll.
While he aims to entertain, Wilson
first looks to ministerthough he does
this in a uniquely personal way that
invites others to join him on his own
journey. Its him who is seeking God,
wants to know God better and wants to
share Gods love with others. He just so
happens to do it with a camera in tow.
The projects are super-personal, he
says of his work. You saw the progression of my own faith [on film]; its very
much for me.
At the same time, hes also come to
grips with the audience God wants him
to reach. I make these mostly for the
Body [of Christ], the sleeping church,
he says. Its for the old me, for those
who are fed up with the church and

Christianity and have lost their saltiness.
Awakened to a Supernatural God

The old me to which Wilson refers
isnt exactly a prodigal son-like past,
but it does include a distinct spiritual
transformation in his life. A native of
Monroe, Michigan, he attended an
American Baptist church as a youngster where his dad was an elder and his
granddad a preacher. He remembers his
parents being gung-ho for the Lord,
but says he was just going through
the motions.
I was a dead Christian, he admits.
I went to church because I was
supposed to.
His wife, Jenell, changed that. The
two met while attending Judson University, where Wilson later became an
English instructor and currently houses
his production company, Wanderlust
Productions. During his time at Judson,
Wilson says he stumbled into a life of
active Christianity. He was admittedly
afraid that God wanted too much from

him for him to ever fully surrender.
Secretly, what I feared about
working for the Lord was, What are
You going to take from me? he says.
When in truth, He wanted to take it
all. I was too scared to trust Him.
But as his wife grew in the Lord, she
refused to leave her new groom behind.
When she started to pray, thats
when things began to happen, Wilson
recalls. Jenell begged him to attend a
2006 prophecy conference in Toronto
that ultimately changed the trajectory of
his life. There the skeptic encountered
an angelic form that not only helped to
reawaken a relationship with God, but
also told Wilson to make the film God
wanted him to make.
The experience began his faith
journey into documentary filmmaking.
Though Wilson had studied screenwriting, he had no experience in film
production and is the first to say he
doesnt have credentials to make the
continued
films he does.
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The one thing He showed me is that

Im not prepared or qualified for any of
this stuff, he says. Its not that I am
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As he embarked on making docuministry flicks and seeing miracles

wrought in the lives of everyday people,
Wilson began to expect the supernatural
everywhereand capture it on camera.
In the process, he also encountered the
deep chasm that can exist between those
who make room for the Holy Spirits
supernatural power and those who deny
it manifests today in the same way as
with the early church. Its on this front
that Holy Ghost blatantly sets out to
reunite split factions of the church.
In the new movie, theres a push
to bring the Word and Spirit churches
together, he says. With Holy Ghost,
Im trying to bridge these two. I want to
push people to love each other.
At one point in the movie, author/
theologian R.T. Kendall speaks of the
silent divorce between these two
camps. This was on full display last fall
when John MacArthurs Strange Fire
book and conference lambasted the
charismatic movement and labeled millions of Spirit-filled believers as heretics
whove swallowed a false gospel. The
attacks sparked responses from countless
leaders in the Spirit-filled community,
including Wilson.
When I first read about and then
followed along with your conference, it
both frustrated and angered me, Wilson
wrote in an open letter to MacArthur.
Not so much because you were calling
people like me a liar or a charlatan or
even Satans puppet. No, I was frustrated
because I know, wholeheartedly, that you
are wrong on this issue.
While others have made careers out
of being self-appointed watchdogs for
extremes in the church, Wilson prefers
letting his films speak for themselves.
And as he demonstrates in Holy Ghost,
its obvious hes more concerned with
showcasing Gods life-changing power
than theological arguments.
One of the more powerful segments
of the film includes an unexpected
66
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: To watch a trailer

of Holy Ghost and find out where the
film is showing around the country, go
to holyghostfilm.charismamag.com
encounter a group of millennials has

during a Korn rock concert. Its not
exactly where youd expect a great move
of Gods power, notes evangelist Todd
White, who prays with throngs of
concertgoers in the film and sees many
accept the Lord right there with tickets
still in hand. But youve got Him
pouring out His spirit and the enemy
trying to deceive.
White, a former drug addict-turnedpraying evangelist, appears in Father of
Lights and Holy Ghost and believes its
time for the works of Jesus to be on display as they are in Wilsons movies. The
world has so much out there, White
says. Its time for the body of Christ to
rise and shine and glorify Jesus and bring
honor to His name.
[In] the first film, [Wilson]
expressed severe skepticism, White
adds. He was in a place of wondering
like with anybody who presses into God.
Then, when you find out that its real,
you go as far as you possibly can. Most
people who watch the film are convicted. Nobody has ever responded with,
Thats so fake, because it was all real.
People want to know who God is and
see what is real.
Johnson believes this authenticity in
Holy Ghost will help to raise the bar in
the churchs awareness of walking in the
supernatural.
Its challenging the comfort zones
for some, Johnson says. Hes provoking
people to think. There will be opposition, but thats what I think its supposed
to do.
So far, Wilson has done more than
make people think. I realize that people
get changed, get healed and get saved
from watching, he says. Yet hes quick
to point out that these reactions have
little to do with him; hes just the one
behind the camera watching God touch
people in extraordinary, supernatural
ways. And thats exactly why countless
viewers watching his films continue to
rally behind this ordinary guy.
LISA JONES TOWNSEL is a freelance writer,
editor and educator based in the Chicago area.
char ismamag.com
BIBLICAL FAMILIES HAVE A PROFOUND IMPACT

From the creators of the life-changing series Focus on the Familys The Truth Project comes a
stunning, new journey of discovery that explores family as a revelation of Godand the
extraordinary impact families have on the world around them. Introducing The Family Project,
a transformative feature-length documentary and DVD small-group experience
that revealsthrough an in-depth exploration of Gods design and
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GET INVOLVED
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2014 Focus on the Family
Empower
For more reviews,

teachings and
Resources, go to
charismamag.com
RESOURCES FOR SPIRIT-LED LIVING
When the Game

Stands Tall
Sony Pictures
Inspired by a true story and opening
in theaters nationwide on Aug. 22,
When the Game Stands Tall depicts the
faith-filled journey of Bob Ladouceur
(Jim Caviezel), a football coach who,
despite taking the De La Salle High
School Spartans from obscurity to
a 12-year, 151-game winning streak
that shattered all records for any
American sport, was more concerned
about shaping his players hearts than
winning games.
Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel)

coaches faith before football in
When the Game Stands Tall
The Best Yes
Lysa TerKeurst
Thomas Nelson
TerKeurst teaches readers how to cure
the disease to please and escape the
shame and guilt of disappointing others
by embracing the wisdom to make
better decisions amid endless demands.
Guillermo Maldonado
Supernatural
Transformation
Guillermo
Maldonado
Whitaker House
Understand how your
heart is designed to pump life into your entire
bodyproducing mental, emotional and physical
health while removing the toxins of sin.
68
Finding Faith in the Dark
Laurie Short
Zondervan
From marital affairs to the death of a loved
one to a seemingly hopeless medical
diagnosis, Finding Faith in the Dark uses the
stories of real people to reveal a God who
is able to transform the dark chapters of
our lives into opportunities of grace.
TRACY BENNETT
char ismamag.com
Forever Yours
Smokie Norful
Capitol
Gospel singer Norfuls first new
studio album in eight years offers
an array of styles, from contemporary love songs
to throwback
urban soul to
Sunday-morning
church flare.
The
Honor Key
Russell Evans
My Healthy Church
The Imperfect
Marriage
Darryl and Tracy
Strawberry
Howard Books
While slugger Darryl Strawberry
dazzled on the diamond, he
and his ordained minister wife,
Tracy, suffered throughand
survivedeverything from adultery to addiction off the field. The
couple now lead a ministry and
recovery center and, as this book
attests, help to restore marriages
with God at the center.
char ismamag.com
Anomaly
Lecraes seventh solo

studio album, Anomaly,
follows up his Grammywinning release, Gravity,
which sold more than
100,000 copies and catapulted the rapper to the
forefront of a movement
blending hip-hop and
faith in both Christian
and secular circles. Wellknown artists and sports
figures are already making
waves with Lecraes prerelease social media buzz
in sharing why their faith
and lives make them
an #anomaly.
7
6
Lecrae
Smokie Norful
The founding pastor

of Planetshakers City
Church in Melbourne,
Australia, shows how
readers can unlock their
gifts, abilities and an
abundant life through
the powerful, biblical
foundation of honor.
Lecrae
When Heaven
Seems Silent
Mark & Tammy Endres

Charisma House
Born with only one functioning
hand, Mark Endres has spent
a lifetime waiting on God
for complete healing. In this
challenging book, he and his
wife tackle the questions that
emerge when we wait for
divine promises to be fulfilled
through pain, disappointment
and doubt.
69
BIBLE READING GUIDE

Simplify: Ten Practices to
Unclutter Your Soul
Bill Hybels
Tyndale
Follow our daily reading plan in

each issue of Charisma to read
through the Bible in one year
DONT JUST PRETEND to love
others. Really love them. Hate what is
wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.
Romans 12:9, NLT
Aug. 1
Aug. 2
Aug. 3
Aug. 4
Aug. 5
Aug. 6
Aug. 7
Aug. 8
Aug. 9
Aug. 10
Aug. 11
Aug. 12
Aug. 13
Aug. 14
Aug. 15
Aug. 16
Aug. 17
Aug. 18
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Aug. 20
Aug. 21
Aug. 22
Aug. 23
Aug. 24
Aug. 25
Aug. 26
Aug. 27
Aug. 28
Aug. 29
Aug. 30
Aug. 31
70
Is. 65-66; Ps. 62; John 3

2 Kin. 21; 2 Chr. 33; John 4
Nah. 1-3; John 5
2 Kin. 22; 2 Chr. 34; John 6
2 Kin. 23; 2 Chr. 35; John 7
Hab. 1-3; John 8
Zeph. 1-3; John 9
Jer. 1-2; John 10
Jer. 3-4; John 11
Jer. 5-6; John 12
Jer. 7-9; John 13
Jer. 10-12; John 14
Jer. 13-15; John 15
Jer. 16-17; Ps. 96; John 16
Jer. 18-20; Ps. 93; John 17
2 Kin. 24; Jer. 22; Ps. 112; John 18
Jer. 23,25; John 19
Jer. 26,35-36; John 20
Jer. 45-47; Ps. 105; John 21
Jer. 48-49; Ps. 67; 1 John 1
Jer. 21,24,27; Ps. 118; 1 John 2
Jer. 28-30; 1 John 3
Jer. 31-32; 1 John 4
Jer. 33-34; Ps. 74; 1 John 5
Jer. 37-39; Ps. 79; 2 John
Jer. 50-51; 3 John
Jer. 52; Rev. 1; Ps. 143-144
Ezek. 1-3; Rev. 2
Ezek. 4-7; Rev. 3
Ezek. 8-11; Rev. 4
Ezek. 12-14; Rev. 5
What if you could shed that daily,

gnawing sense of having more things
to do than hours in the day? What
if your life could be more than just
rushing from one busy activityor
seasonto
the next?
Hybels, the
founder and
senior pastor
of Willow Creek
Community
Church in Barrington, Illinois,
believes its
possible for
you to ind
such peace as he explores the importance of simplifying life by uncluttering
your soul.
In Simplify, Hybels tackles a deining
issue of todays American culture
the frantic pace of modern life that
too often consumes and controls our
every move, leaving us exhausted and
overwhelmed. A lifelong struggler with
these issues, Hybel has an abundance
of road-tested wisdom to share with
those who crave a simpler life anchored
by the priorities that matter most.
The inluential pastor shows
readers how to respond to Gods call
to purpose, fulillment, connectedness
and joyful productivityrather than
reacting to the daily demands and priorities of others. Using spiritual insight,
readers will discover how to create a
God-irst schedule to simplify their lives.
I have waited four decades to
write this book, says Hybels, primarily
because it has taken me nearly that
long to learn the lessons necessary
to lead a focused, fulilling and simpliied life. This book is not about
buying a new day timer or app. It pulls
the layers back and gets at the why
questions: Why do I overschedule,
overcommit and overspend? Why do I
carry low-grade levels of fear and bear
grudges for wrongs that occurred a

decade ago?
Hybels hopes readers will have
answered those questions by the end
of the book. And to that extent, Simplify
is both honest and practical as a timely
resource that can help anybody who is
ready to move into a future that looks
far diferent from their past. Felicia
Abraham
Deliverance and Spiritual

Warfare Manual
John Eckhardt
Charisma House
In this comprehensive guide to all
things deliverance and spiritual warfare, the best-selling author of Prayers
That Rout
Demons shares
the diference
between these
two areas of
walking with
the Holy Spirit.
Deliverance will
give you rest,
Eckhardt establishes, while
spiritual warfare will give you the training, strategies
and endurance to live abundantly.
Eckhart, who oversees Crusaders
Ministries in Chicago, irst describes the
importance of deliverance and spiritual
warfare and gives the reader a guide
on how to regain peace, joy, health
and prosperity. The pastor also details
speciic prayers that should be prayed
for self-deliverance and elaborates on
diferent strongholds and demons.
He then shares how to pray, fast and
intercede for others as the Holy Spirit
demolishes those demonic inluences.
At its core, this manual shares essential information for those who desire to
minister deliverance to others and help
them walk in victory through spiritual
warfare. Eckhart encourages believers
to stop settling for a life without true
spiritual freedom and, through the
pages of his resourceful book, reveals
tools that equip readers to face their
fears and overcome the enemys
stronghold. Asa Cleveland
char ismamag.com
I S TO C K P H OTO / A LT E R YO U R R E A L I T Y
BOOKS
Empower
Q&A WITH CHRISTINE CAINE
Winning the Relay of Faith

Life can be nothing but a rat race when you lose sight of God and end up chasing the wrong things. But for
speaker and author Christine Caine, theres a race were all called to run. And in her new book Unstoppable, she
explains why its a race we were all born to win.
CHARISMA: What inspired
you to write your new book?
CAINE: In the 2000 Olympics
I watched the womens 4x100
meter relay. The American
team was the team to beat
and should have won the
relay. But they had a very soft
exchange and the Bahamian
and the Jamaican teams took
over. Even though the Americans are the fastest team on
paper, they ended up losing
because they had a weak
[baton] exchange.
Then in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, the
American team again should
have won the 4x100 meter
race. One of the team members slowed down a little and
she fumbled the exchange.
Their team ended up getting
disqualified.
Then it started to dawn on
me, I wonder if there is a pattern here. In 2008 at the Beijing Olympics the American
team dropped the baton at
the exchange and ended up
being disqualified again. In
the 2012 Olympics is when I
said I have to write this book.
That year, all of the exchanges
went really smoothly in each
of the three exchange zones
and the American womens
4x100 team won.
As I was watching that, I
just felt in my heart the Holy
Spirit say, Christine, this is
what its like in My church. A
lot of My church is running as
if theyre running an individual
72
sprint but they are actually

part of a divine relay. We need
to, in our generation, learn to
carry the baton of faith.
CHARISMA: How does this
concept practically apply to
the body of Christ?
CAINE: Ive been serving in
full-time ministry for more
than 25 years. A couple of
seasons ago I started to
realize that there was a divine
exchange that was happening
in the kingdom. It was a real
shift of different generations.
We are the body of Christ and
we are dependent on one
another. We need to make
sure that we are not
hanging on to the
baton too long and
handing it over too late. We

also need to make sure were
ready for the exchange and
that weve got our hands out
ready to run and receive the
baton.
We have this younger
generation waiting, saying,
When are you going to pass
something over to me? But
youve got to be running in
the exchange zone so I can
give you the baton. Then
some others are holding onto
the baton and the younger
generation is running, saying,
Quick! Hand it over or
youll disqualify all the work
that weve done. We are all
dependant
on each
other.
Christine Caine
CHARISMA: How does the

church properly and practically carry the baton of faith?
CAINE: What we dont
realize is that every time
we dont dive into the
Word, every time we try to
diminish the power of God,
we are actually saying to
a generation that we are
dropping the baton of faith.
Every time we leave our
post, if God has called us to
a job, to a marriage or to be
light in the darkness in the
midst of our public schools,
then we are on assignment.
We are carrying the baton
of faith.
I want to remind the body
of Christ again that we are
not a product of time; we are
a product of eternity. We are
given gifts and talents for the
purpose of serving. Even in
the difficulties in our life the
storms of our life, we cant
drop the baton of faith. God
will turn everything around
that the enemy meant for evil
and use it for good. I want to
inspire people who have given
up hope.
We need to get ourselves
like an army, fully immersed
in the Word and seeing our
normal everyday life as the
battlefield for our fight of faith.
CHARISMA: If you could sum
up your entire book with one
principle what would it be?
CAINE: That the fight of faith
is worth fighting for.
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Fire in My Bones
BY J. LEE GRADY
Dont Put the Holy Spirit in a Box!

Were in big trouble if we dont allow the Holy Spirit to interrupt our programs
Lets fling open the

doors and allow the Holy
Spirit to have His way.
raised up thousands of prophets who

have not bowed their knees to the Baals of
exploitation, greed and gimmicks. We need
life-giving traveling ministries because God
sends them to win new converts, heal the
sick, unleash prophetic power and impart
new vision in congregations. We should not
be afraid to expose our churches to men
and women of character who are called to
minister in the supernatural.
6) Give time for testimonies. Nothing
raises the faith level of a congregation like
someones raw experience with God. If a
man was healed this week in your church,
let him shout it from the housetops. If an
infertile couple got pregnant, let them
tell about the goodness of God. Stories of
supernatural intervention trigger a holy
expectation in everyone.
7) Preach about holiness. Lets never
forget that the Holy Spirit is holy. When
people are filled with the Spirit, the Spirit
burns up their sinful habits (see Matt.
3:11-12). The Spirit is quenched by immorality, carnality and pride, and He does not
manifest His power when Gods people are
steeped in sin and compromise.
Many churches today have stopped
warning Gods people about the dangers
of sin, so we dont confront anymore. Weve
figured out that people will pack the house
if we give them sugary-sweet motivational pep talks that never step on toes. By
avoiding the tough topics, weve essentially
told the Holy Ghost to take a hike.
Lets fling open the doors and allow
the Spirit to have His way. Instead of being
afraid of what He might disrupt, or who
He might offend, lets rather fear what our
churches would be like without Him.
J. LEE GRADY was editor of Charisma for 11 years. He now serves as contributing editor while devoting more time to ministry. You can find him
on Twitter at @leegrady or online at themordecaiproject.org. He is the author of The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale and other books.
78
char ismamag.com
SEAN ROBERTS
t used to be easy to identify a church that believed

in the power of the Holy Spirit. But today? Not
so much. The popular trend is to make church
services as mainstream as possible so we dont
offend anyone. Weve created a hipster Christian
culture that is seeker-friendly, techno-savvy, uber-cool
and downloadable.
Yet everywhere I go I hear pastors asking the same
question: How can we encourage the freedom of
the Spirit when churches have become increasingly
scripted, scheduled and controlled right down to the
nanosecond? The essence of Pentecost, which came
suddenly (Acts 2:2), was its unpredictability. But theres
no room for Gods sudden surprises when we already
have our three worship songs timed perfectly and our
sermons planned for the next six months.
Here are seven practical things we can do to
encourage the freedom of Pentecost in our churches:
1) Teach about the Holy Spirit often. The Holy Spirit is rarely mentioned in churches today.
Yet He is described in the second verse of the Bible as moving upon the surface of the newly created world (Gen. 1:2) and He has one of the last messages in the Bible (see Rev. 22:17). He moves
and He speaks throughout the Scriptures! But we must invite Him to move and speak by giving
Him the place He deserves.
2) Leave room for altar ministry. A church without altar ministry is like a hospital without a
maternity ward. New life begins at the altarwhether it is salvation, healing, prophetic ministry
or the impartation of a fresh anointing. Today many churches that offer multiple services often
skimp on ministry time because they are focused on herding the 10 a.m. group out of the sanctuary to get ready for the 11:30 a.m. crowd. Multiple services are fine, but we are crowding the
Spirit out of the church if we dont schedule time for people to respond to God.
3) Have small groups where people can use the Spirits gifts. It isnt practical for everyone
to prophesy in a congregation. But if people are plugged into small groups or Bible classes there
will be opportunities for believers to encourage one another in supernatural ways. And people
are more comfortable stepping out in faith in front of 10 people than they are in front of 3,000.
4) Train people in Spirit-led ministry. Many pastors clamp down on spiritual gifts because
a few fanatics with inflated egos like to pull the church into weirdness with their visions, dreams
or strange teachings. But in our effort to protect the sheep from deception, lets not pull the pendulum to the other extreme by forbidding the gifts of the Spirit. The genuine power of God will
flow if we teach people the difference between authentic anointing and strange fire.
5) Expose your church to healthy ministries that flow in the anointing. There are some
charlatans selling the Holy Spirits gifts today. But not every traveling minister is a fake. God has
Eye-opening and motivating for all of us who love God and the USA.
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SPECIAL ISSUE: RECOGNIZING THE HOLY SPIRIT

LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

From the very beginning, I knew

If you or someone you love is fighting

No case is typical. You should not expect to experience these results.

SPECIAL ISSUE: RECOGNIZING THE HOLY SPIRIT

A Centennial Move of the Spirit

COVER PHOTOS (clockwise from top right):

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Have you relegated yourself to the sidelines in

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When the Holy Ghost Moves on the

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Join these accomplished

LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

Founding Editor and Publisher STEVE STRANG

Chief Operating Officer JOY F. STRANG

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Production Manager CARA S. SHOWERS

Advertising Manager ANN MARIE KELLY

Advertising Sales TRAVIS HAMZIK

TODD STARNES ON THE FRONTLINES

for course correction for too many. It will

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I commend J. Lee Grady for having the

HOW TO CONNECT WITH US:

CHARISMA | August 2014

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Advertising Sales MICHAEL JOHNSON

Dir. of Audience Development DAVID MANNING

Customer Service NETTIE PARKS

EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES:

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Jack Frosts Widow Finds Courage to Continue at Shiloh

A Child Will Lead the Way ... to the Mission Field

Young missionaries participate

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social network that connects

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the world. An entrepreneur

participate in volunteer events

touch. Not only can you find

FOR FOUR years, Marie Cribbs life

CHARISMA | August 2014

like something is going to happen.

Marie recalls. Then Ruth extended her

Woman Walks After Four Years Confined to Wheelchair

| THE STRANG REPORT

s the Assemblies of God celebrates