The church is not a place to hide from sinners. It’s time we cast aside our judgment and make everyone feel welcome. 

Author Flannery O’Connor once noted that “sometimes you have to suffer as much from the church as you do for it.” This has certainly been my experience–and that of many others I know. That’s because the church tends to judge those who don’t live up to its standards.

Take the church I grew up in, for example. I was raised in a very strict church in which rules and regulations smothered the concept of grace by their sheer weight. No jewelry for women. No mixed bathing (swimming). No musical instruments in the church other than a piano or organ.

No long hair for men. No short hair and no pants for women. No shorts. No cussing. No makeup. No card playing. No movies. No dancing. No smoking. No drinking.

The list of nos went on and on. The sad thing was, some of the things allowed in this church were actually more repulsive than the things banned. Things such as racism and bigotry.

There was not a stated policy, but you never would have seen a “colored” (our loving and enlightened term for African Americans) in our church. It was just understood. They had “their” churches, and I guess we thought it was OK for “them” to worship “our” God if “they” had the decency to be discreet about it.

Members of our church also railed against Jews. I heard statements from the pulpit that the Jews were ruining our country, while the fact that the Savior happened to be one was ignored. And don’t even begin to mention “queers” or “sodomites,” as we so colorfully called the gay population.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ time received severe rebukes from the Lord for this type of hypocrisy. These religious leaders were dogmatic about performing religious rituals–and quick to condemn those who didn’t participate. But they were sorely lacking in qualities Jesus considered even more important.

The church today is no different. We condemn those who drink and smoke and live immoral lives while we churchgoers engage in gluttony and gossip and selfishness and bigotry.

No wonder so many people feel so alienated from the church. I often feel alienated–and I’m a member of this club!

But Jesus’ church is not a highbrow Christian country club. The church should exclude no one. The church should welcome those unwelcome anywhere else. Anyone can attend.

And yet most churches are not a place where people feel comfortable if they are living a life that is not moral. In fact, the church is often a place where most people don’t feel comfortable if they’re just living life!

In my hometown of Chillicothe, Ohio, an acquaintance finally decided it was time to get his family into a local church. He loaded up the crew and visited one nearby. The church immediately showed a tremendous and heartfelt concern for issues.

You see, Roy had the audacity to show up in God’s house with a full beard, not unlike Jesus’ in the picture hanging in the foyer. A church leader met Roy on the way out.

“So are you going to start worshiping with us?” he asked.

“Why yes,” Roy replied. “We want to start coming to church.”

The church leader looked at him and said, “Well, I hope you will have shaved by next Sunday.” That was more than 20 years ago. Roy still has not found a regular church home.

Apart from God’s grace and the maturity to see each human being as His creation, we are prone to reject those who are different from us. Have you ever wished that certain people wouldn’t speak or be so prominent in your congregation? You would be more comfortable bringing unchurched friends if those slightly embarrassing brothers and sisters weren’t there, or at least were invisible.

My family reunion would look much better (trust me) if it were by invitation only. But when you include the entire family, you get a few embarrassments. And your family is no doubt the same.

So it is with my church family. That is a simple fact, given what we have to work with: sinners.

We need to trust God with those who are a little embarrassing to those of us who are not. (How amazing that our prideful minds can even think like that!) We might even take the bold step of befriending them.

Sensitive to Sinners

I recall dating a girl long before I met my beloved wife, Joni. I asked her to go to church with me.

She was not a Christian and did not know the “official” rules. She arrived at church wearing a strapless dress that the congregation found scandalous. In her mind she was simply wearing her best dress to church; she had no idea she was doing anything “wrong.”

From the moment we walked in, the two of us felt the saints’ reproachful laser-beam stares of righteousness drilling into us. Instead of asking God to make my friend’s heart receptive to His Word, I spent the service worrying about what this pea-brained congregation thought of me.

The reactions would have been different in a sinner-sensitive church. The sinner-sensitive church (SSC) is my proposal for a new church movement toward making everyone feel welcomed and loved. The SSC would model nonjudgmental attitudes.

Issues such as having tattoos, body piercings and weird hair would not necessarily denote demon possession. The SSC would pledge not to gossip because we would realize that it is only by the grace of God that we are not the current targets. The SSC would value every spiritual, physical and financial gift, no matter how big or small.

The SSC would make it a practice to reach out, touch and care for one another sacrificially because we know that we all fall down in life and in our Christian walks. At the SSC we would have executives holding hands in prayer with laborers and not thinking twice about it. Blacks and whites and Hispanics and others would break bread together because we are all sinners in the eyes of a colorblind God.

The SSC would give freely out of profound gratitude to a God who somehow saw fit to give us an undeserved chance. We would practice the prodigal son ministry, running to welcome those returning from mistakes and bad decisions and sin.

Our members would get involved in other people’s lives. We would hold our brothers and sisters accountable to godly standards.

Marriage would be cherished. Families would have a community of support during problems and trials. The congregation of the SSC would not be so self-centered that we would demand the undivided attention of the pastor at every little crisis. Other believers would help meet many of those needs that we now prefer to leave to the “professional Christians” on staff.

The SSC would also delight in the company of other spiritual travelers and make it a priority that no one ever felt alone. We would make one another feel valuable, but on occasion, a little uncomfortable.

Being comfortable in church is not the primary goal. I am not always comfortable at the dentist’s office. I often arrive in pain because I have neglected to do what I should have done.

The staff makes me feel welcome and cared for. Then the dentist confronts me with the truth: “You have let this go too long, and I must hurt you (a little) in order to heal you. You will have to pay a financial price and spend time recovering before you are completely well.” Those are the facts of my dental hygiene sin.

The SSC church would not back off the truth either. Decay in the enamel or soul must be addressed.

We would tell one another the truth and explain that the process might be a little painful. We would participate in ongoing preventive maintenance and help one another deal with problems as soon as possible, before they became even more painful and expensive to fix.

The SSC would worship with enthusiasm, whether singing hymns or praise choruses, because God is worthy of that praise. The SSC would have a sense of profound reverence because we all have received God’s grace, the most amazing gift ever offered. The SSC would be so excited about this grace that the incredible news of the gospel would be as much a part of who we are as our jobs and our families are.

Sinner-sensitive was the ministry style of our Lord. He was always available to people who realized their need.

What Would Jesus Do?

In fact, I marvel at the example of Christ and His approach to sinners. Obviously He did not condone the lifestyles and actions of many who surrounded Him.

Yet He seemed drawn to the spiritually needy–and they to Him. Prostitutes, lepers and tax collectors all felt the need to hear what Jesus had to say.

 

It seems that the people most uncomfortable around Jesus were the religious folks, the churchgoers as it were. Those who are most ill need the physician’s time, and Jesus gravitated to the emergency-room cases.

He had little patience with those who failed to recognize their true spiritual symptoms (the Pharisees and other religious folk). But He was always willing to see the spiritually ill.

The church should be in the business of addressing spiritual illness. When you are deathly ill, you don’t start thinking of going to the health club: “Well, this will be a good time to get in shape. I feel horrible, and I think I’m going to die.”

Yet many churches have somehow communicated that only the spiritually healthy are truly welcome at church. Many people think their lives are too far gone to be accepted at church, when in fact that brokenness makes them ready to receive God’s amazing grace.

But too many people feel that going to church would make them too uncomfortable or heighten their guilt. They sense they would be judged and treated with condescension.

Yes, some of these feelings are self-inflicted wounds. But more are not. We must examine the possibility that we are doing things that make hurting people stay away from the church.

Most of us don’t much like to be around the truly spiritually ill. It tends to make us uncomfortable. Treating the spiritually ill is draining, and it comes with no guarantees for success. We would rather hire someone to clean up the mess and report back to us at a praise service.

Yet how can we preach Christ’s love and not care about the AIDS epidemic? How can we talk about God’s grace but ignore other people’s physical needs and bow to the idols of success and money and power?

How can we talk about the importance of giving and then spend money on things we don’t need, often to curry the approval of people we don’t really care about? How can we minister to others when we don’t first meet the spiritual needs of our own families? How can we win the respect of the world when we cruise around in luxury sports cars and turn our faces away from homeless people?

Do we think that if we ignore the problems perhaps God will not hold us accountable?

Governed by Grace

Philip Yancey has written a wonderful book about grace titled What’s So Amazing About Grace? that I would put on anyone’s must-read list. One of his most compelling illustrations comes from an alcoholic friend who attends Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings.

His friend says: “When I’m late to church, people turn around and stare at me with frowns of disapproval. When I’m late to AA, the meeting comes to a halt, and everyone jumps up to hug me. They realize my lateness may be a sign that I almost didn’t make it.”

Wouldn’t you love to see this scenario play out at a local church: I walk in as a visitor and stride to the front of the sanctuary during the multimedia drama presentation about accepting others’ differences. I turn to the congregation and announce: “Hi! My name is Dave. And I’m a sinner.”

“Hi, Dave!” the congregation responds. “We love you and are here to help.”

More likely an associate pastor would gently take me by the arm and try to lead me quietly away while a deacon called the straitjacket express. Today’s successful 12-step support groups have become what the body of Christ could and in fact should have become.

And though the roots of AA are firmly planted in Christian grace, why did it even have to be developed? Shouldn’t the church be the place to which such hurting men and women would instinctively be drawn to receive the help they need?

Even a quick study of the life of Christ would reveal that any of us could have quite comfortably walked into His “12 guy” program and announced our status as sinners. In fact, that little confession would have moved us right to the head of the class and could very well have made us the teacher’s pet.

So why has the local church repelled so many of those who have the very needs we are equipped, through Christ, to address? I realize that it is not entirely the fault of the church that the spiritually ill stay away. But it seems to me that we had better examine what part of the problem is our responsibility.

The church should be the most level playing field on earth. After all, in Jesus’ eyes, the soul of the Fortune 500 CEO is no more valuable than the soul of the crackhead down the alley.

That sort of thinking is uncomfortable and even scandalous for most of us because it contradicts our culture’s values. We honor looks, money, power and fame. Jesus cared about none of those.

In Luke 16:14-15 the gospel writer talked about “the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard these things [Jesus talking about the parable of the shrewd manager], and they derided Him.” And He said to them: ‘You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God'” (NKJV).

The popular saying What Would Jesus Do? can be a bit trite, but on the other hand it can pose a great spiritual question. Christians, like physicians, should vow to do no harm. But forgive us, Lord.

Because, in trying to keep people out of the “club,” we do.

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Dave Burchett is an Emmy Award-winning TV sports director for Fox Sports, ESPN and NBC. He and his wife, Joni, live in Garland, Texas, and are former staff members of Campus Crusade for Christ.

American evangelist Randy Clark discovered that the Holy Spirit is fueling dramatic church growth in China in spite of persecution.

American healing evangelist Randy Clark, best known as the man who helped ignite the “Toronto Blessing” revival in Canada in 1994, met recently with seven top leaders of the New Wine House Church movement, a growing underground network that has an estimated 25 million members. New Wine is one of at least six major house-church movements that together comprise an estimated 98 million “unregistered” Christians in China.

Although Clark has preached in 23 nations and seen thousands converted, healed and delivered since the Toronto revival began, he went to China not to speak but to listen to those who are witnessing the most impressive church growth in the world.

Clark and his traveling companion, 51-year-old Rex Burgher, dressed in four layers of clothing including two overcoats, ski masks and hoods as they ventured into Beijing during the harsh winter. They looked like spies on a secret mission as they were quickly rushed from the airport to a van that would take them to a remote area of Inner Mongolia where the temperature was 38 degrees below zero.

“The guides didn’t want the police to know we were Americans,” Clark said. “So I bought a plain, ugly coat at Sam’s Club. We had ski masks with hoods over our hats, and scarves over our faces so they could barely see us.”

They drove for hours in the night. The extra clothing had not prepared them for ice that was a quarter-inch thick all around the inside of the car windows. The frozen floorboard numbed their feet. Clark put a towel between his shoulder and the window to shield his body from the bitter draft. “If that car died on the road, we probably would’ve frozen,” Clark told Charisma.

In the early morning hours, under the cover of darkness, the Americans were quietly rushed from the van, up a staircase and into an apartment where they would spend the remainder of the night. Clark and Burgher slept on beds made of padded boards, with no springs or mattresses. A simple light bulb was hanging from the ceiling over a bare concrete floor. One toilet ran constantly, and they filled a bucket with water and dumped it into the toilet to make it flush.

After sleeping for an hour and a half, Clark met with one of the seven house-church leaders of the New Wine movement, then with a group of about 60 house-church pastors. The leaders quietly trickled into the room at different times so they would not draw too much attention to the meeting.

In China, meetings like this are illegal. But they are occurring at all hours and on every day of the week in this communist stronghold.

“The Spirit of God fell, and we would sing,” says Clark of the early morning worship time. “It got a little loud at one point, and concern was on their faces because they didn’t want to draw too much attention. If they’d have been discovered they knew they would spend two to three years in a labor camp prison for being caught with an American.” 

Passion for Evangelism

After spending time with these Christians, Clark and Burgher returned to the airport and flew to a province in southern China, where the temperature was 90 degrees warmer. Dressed in light jackets and blue jeans, the two men entered a modestly furnished hotel room where the New Wine House Church leaders used cell phones to secure guarded interviews and meetings. One or two leaders entered at a time, communicating with Clark through an interpreter while Burgher recorded the discussions.

What intrigued Clark the most was the fact that two of the top seven leaders from the New Wine House Church movement were women. The leaders said that women are sent out to evangelize in China more frequently than men are because villagers are sometimes suspicious of two strange men entering towns together. Although men and women of all ages evangelize in China, many pioneering young women–usually between ages 18 and 22–are changing the spiritual landscape of China.

Some of the female evangelists are even younger. Clark attended a house-church meeting where two teen-age girls testified about miracles God had done during their travels along China’s eastern coast. Clark listened to them testify of their simple itinerant preaching and found himself both fascinated and convicted by their selfless dedication.

Like other Christian girls their age, 18-year-old Mei and 16-year-old Lin leave their homes twice a year. They each carry two shoulder bags packed with Chinese Bibles, teaching materials and a few changes of clothes. The girls have less than $25 between them for food and travel for six months. When they begin their journey no one knows them, so they save their money for bus tickets home and eat few meals the next 10 days. They sleep under the stars or in the rain.

Going from town to town they share the gospel until someone is converted. “The Lord sent us here,” they tell the Christians in the village. “May we stay in your home?” New converts often agree to house them.

The girls ask Christians they meet along the way to invite friends and relatives to their homes. The first home usually becomes a station where the young evangelists can return months later and secure a place to stay–so they can disciple new converts in the new house church.

After a church is established and a Bible is given to its new leader, the young women begin a new missionary journey. Days pass, and often there are no families to stay with. Their bodies become thin for lack of food. At night they often sleep in the open fields, underneath trees, or they cover themselves with straw from animal shelters.

On their most recent trip, Mei and Lin’s feet were bruised and bleeding after 40 days of walking through the countryside. During this time they established 18 churches with about 40 people in each one. Many signs and miracles took place, they told Clark.

“The Lord just gives us the words and the faith to declare what Jesus can do,” Lin said.

During the last week of their latest trip, more than 10,000 people came to know Jesus as Savior in one coastal city. The girls used microphones and boldly conducted open-air meetings in a rural area outside the city.

On the last day of the meetings, the girls canceled the event and left because they felt uneasy. “Immediately after they left, the police went to their meeting place to arrest them, but the girls eluded their grasp,” Clark said.

In miraculous ways God guided these women from city to city in eastern China. When six months had passed, they purchased inexpensive bus tickets to return to their families before beginning another evangelism journey. 

Martyrs and Marvels

Because the Chinese government forbids Christians to evangelize, most of these traveling Christians have been jailed more than once. They are routinely beaten and tortured by police or prison guards. So far, five leaders of the New Wine movement have been martyred.

One wave of persecution came in 1983. At that time 13 key leaders were imprisoned and told by communist guards to dig their own graves. All 13 gathered, prayed and cried together. “But after a while their crying turned into singing. They began to sing, ‘I don’t know about tomorrow, but I know who holds my hand.'” Clark said.

“The leaders decided that they would continue to preach as long as they lived. All 13 not only made it out of the prison alive, but today are working to send missionaries to all 56 minority groups in China as well as to other Asian countries.”

Clark asked one evangelist, Brother Zhu, to describe one of his four prison experiences.

“Sometimes they use a knife to cut our head, a rope to hit us or an electric stick to hit our head,” Zhu said. “We were always hungry and without food. So, when we are working outside in the field, we grab the grass and eat it. We work for the whole year and they only pay us one Chinese dollar. So each day we only have one penny. We use that dollar to buy paper for the toilet. It’s not regular toilet paper, just a piece of paper. We brush our teeth every three days because we don’t want to wear out the toothbrush.”

Another minister, Brother Li, compared his prison experience to seminary. “All the preachers went through the jail life and were beaten,” he said. “We endured persecutions and all kinds of severe punishment.

“During that time of jail and suffering life we don’t have Bibles. We only have a little piece of paper with Bible verses. Sometimes we wrote down our Bible verses on our clothes, our sleeve, and through this way we begin to preach the gospel in the jail.”

Often the families of those incarcerated suffer equally from hunger and humiliation. They are viewed as social outcasts because their imprisoned family members broke communism’s religious laws. But while China’s Christians are facing harsh opposition, they are winning new converts at the rate of 25,000 per day–conversions that are usually followed by miraculous signs, wonders and healings.

There also have been numerous reports of resurrections. In an eastern province, prison officials beat one Christian to death. “After they beat him to death, they didn’t want to send his body home because the government official was scared that when a Christian is sent home, the Christians will pray and the person will be resurrected,” one leader told Clark. “So they burned the body and just sent the ashes home.”

One unusual instance of raising the dead happened when three Christian women were preaching the gospel in a village. A man approached them and began to curse one of the girls. This sister turned back and said, “The Lord bless you.”

“Right after she said that, the man died!” a leader reported. “But the people who gathered around him encouraged the women to pray for the dead man. They laid hands on him and prayed and he was resurrected.”

Despite the increasing reports of miraculous signs and wonders, none of the Christian leaders from the New Wine movement accept any titles for themselves.

“I asked them if they saw that some people have an apostolic ministry,” Clark told Charisma. “One leader told me: ‘No, we don’t think like that. We’re all just brothers and sisters.’ Everyone knows who these seven are, but they don’t have titles like apostle so-and-so, but recognize people with that type of ministry.”

This humble attitude is prevalent among house-church leaders. One 50-year-old evangelist told Clark: “We, the so-called leaders, have only elementary schooling. Our education is not high. How could we do this work? I believe it is the work of the Holy Spirit.”

‘When the Holy Spirit Came’

Clark asked each of the leaders when the outpouring of the Holy Spirit began to happen in their group and what it was like. He was surprised when every leader answered his question with the same words–“When the Holy Spirit came in 1988…”

It was in 1988 that a missionary from Hong Kong, Dennis Balcombe, visited mainland China more than 10 times. He ignited revival fires all over the continent.

Brother Zhu, one of the leaders, told Clark that underground churches were “like dead bones” before 1988. “Before, we were preaching the same message, but when people here heard it, they didn’t feel much impact. But after 1988, our preaching is anointed and leaves great impact,” he said.

Because of Clark’s own revival experience in Toronto in 1994, he pressed Zhu and the others for more information, asking them to describe the manifestations they experienced in 1988. “All the experiences were just like what we read about in the second chapter of Acts,” Zhu replied. “Some were laughing, some crying, some rolling on the floor, some were speaking in tongues, and people are thinking they are not normal–like they are drunk.”

Added Brother Li: “Before 1988, the church was always crying. So many Gentiles were scared because they thought that to become a Christian meant you had to cry. But after we experienced the laughing movement, then the Gentiles saw, ‘Hey, the church is a different place. We can rejoice in the church!’ Then the Christians began to multiply. So many people received Jesus.”

Clark was intrigued by the fact that the “holy laughter” phenomenon had touched the Chinese church. He notes that revival historian Richard M. Riss has documented that unusual manifestations have characterized many past revivals. He documents that as early as 1233, believers in northern Italy spoke of “jubilation and spiritual inebriation” during visitations of the Holy Spirit.

What caught Clark’s attention most was that China’s laughing revival occurred before the Toronto and Pensacola outpourings and that the 1988 revival actually produced a high percentage of growth in the church. One leader told Clark that healings have gone up 80 percent since 1988. More than 60 million people have received Jesus nationwide since the outpouring.

“At that time, all new Christians were like a burning fire,” Brother Li said. “No matter where we go, people just come and touch the fire and then become Christians.”

Delighted that he received all he could have hoped for from his interviews, Clark packed up his video equipment and gave the pastors $7,000 to help buy Bibles and support the families of those imprisoned for their faith. Clark then asked Brother Li what Christians in the West could do to help them.

Brother Li said he remembers when he and 30 co-workers received their first Bible from a foreign country. Everyone took a turn to kiss the Bible.

“In the Western world you have a church building, you have fancy Bibles, you have seminary schools,” Brother Li said. “Therefore we request from the Western nations that all the Christians who have faith would pray for China.”

Chinese believers hold a strategic key to reaching the world-and they need our support.

Since the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Christians in the West have recognized the strategic importance of reaching Muslims. In a moment’s time, our eyes have been opened to what missiologists have been telling us all along. Islam is the last great spiritual stronghold to be overcome by the love of Christ.

While the church in the West grapples with the challenge of Islam, God has been mobilizing an army to reach the Muslim world. In China, the world’s most populous nation, thousands of missionaries are preparing themselves to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ back to Jerusalem via the Islamic countries in the Middle East.

Christians in China’s underground church–which currently numbers 40 million-50 million believers–believe this is their hour. They know they have a historic responsibility to complete the gospel’s global circuit, which began in Israel nearly 2,000 years ago.

While the heroic faith and miracle stories of Chinese Christians have been well-publicized in the last few years, less noted has been their own interpretation of these events. They believe their suffering, imprisonment and torture has been part of God’s preparation for them to reach the difficult world of Islam. They can endure harsh conditions in Muslim nations because they have been tested by the fire of persecution in their own country.

They can survive the stark darkness of Islam because they have lived under communism. They can do much with little because they have lived in poverty for years in the foothills of China. They know how to be steadfast in the face of persecution and danger because they have subsisted on such a diet from the early days of China’s revival.

The training has equipped them. Now they feel called to reach the world.

In the last few years I’ve had the privilege of being with many of China’s top underground church leaders. I’ve listened to their burden. They aren’t waiting for missionaries to come into China when the Bamboo Curtain falls. They are waiting for the curtain to fall so they can be launched out!

I recently brought two Messianic Jewish ministers with me into China to help acquaint China’s underground movements on how to reach the Jewish people. It was a phenomenal moment. The underground churches are poised to march through Central Asia to reach Muslims and Jews, but they also are ready to reach all nations.

Geopolitical experts predict that China will become a pre-eminent economic superpower in the coming years. But what they don’t realize is that China’s greatest contribution may not be in the global marketplace but in the sending of missionaries.

Keep your eyes on China. Believers there will play a pivotal role in fulfilling the Great Commission. While they have missed out on centuries of missionary activity, they are now doing their best to catch up and lead. I hope American Christians will do their part in supporting this emerging global force.

Rich Kao pastors City Hill Fellowship in Minneapolis. He also serves as a board member of Strategic China Initiative, a nonprofit missions organization dedicated to training the leaders of China’s underground church movement.

C. Hope Flinchbaugh is a free-lance writer based in Pennsylvania. Her new novel, Daughter of China, will release in the fall from Bethany House.

*Names in this report were changed to protect the identities of Chinese Christians who face the threat of imprisonment

Maria Sliwa, a controversial ex-cop from New York City, has a new crime beat. She’s calling the United States government to get tough on countries that persecute Christians.
It’s 9 a.m. on a crisp Monday, and Maria Sliwa has just forwarded another e-mail. This report is just in from United Press International: A pregnant Sudanese Christian has been sentenced to death by stoning for allegedly committing adultery. Human Rights Watch is pleading with the Sudanese president to spare her life.

The e-mail address is familiar to journalists, ministers and human rights groups worldwide. Sliwa–known to some simply as MS4Freedom@ –is a one-woman lobbying organization dedicated to championing the cause of the persecuted church, particularly in Sudan. She usually does her “shouting and yelling” from the computer in her living room, but sometimes she takes her cause to the streets, as she did on May 2, 2001, when she got arrested in front of the Sudanese Mission to the United Nations during a demonstration she helped organize.

The protest could have won her a three- or four-day stay in the “Tombs,” a notorious jail located in the Centre Street courthouse in Lower Manhattan. The facility is filthy and crammed with muggers, drug dealers, prostitutes and petty thieves. Germs permeate the ancient holding cells, which resemble animal cages, and Sliwa admits, “I was scared to death.”

She ended up spending several hours at the 17th Precinct jail. But for this ex-cop-turned-crusader, what’s worse than waking up in a dirty jail cell is hearing the cries of Sudanese believers who have been tortured, raped and enslaved as penalty for their beliefs.

For more than 20 years, the fundamentalist Islamic government of Sudan has persecuted black Christians and animists in a bloody civil war. The New York Times reported in October 1999 that the war in Sudan “is in many ways a religious conflict, pitting the Muslim north against the Christian south.”

More than 2 million people have died since 1983, and an estimated 100,000 people are in bondage in the north. National Islamic Front soldiers have torched villages and food supplies, pastors have been crucified, and starvation runs rampant as Christians are pressured to convert to Islam.

Former slave Mary Akuc was gang-raped by Arabs. “They cut the throats of two slaves,” she says. “They forced me at gunpoint to eat their inner organs. I am a Christian, but they forced me to say Muslim prayers.”

The hope of seeing an end to such brutality is what landed Sliwa in jail. “I felt a tremendous burden for people suffering,” she says. “I felt heartbroken that their voice wasn’t being heard. Even though my flesh was fighting the arrest, I knew that the word had to get out. You had to do something desperate for people to take notice.”

What Price Freedom?

At 5 feet 1 inch tall, Sliwa isn’t exactly the picture of a world crusader. Sitting in her living room, she taps out another e-mail: A Sudanese government plane bombed a U.N. distribution center, killing one child and injuring six civilians.

This three-room apartment in a working-class section of New Jersey is the 46-year-old’s international headquarters of sorts, where she edits the Freedom Now World News (), an 80,000-subscriber Internet news service, and alerts the globe about human rights abuses against Christians worldwide. The free weekly service is disseminated to media professionals, government officials, pastors, laity and advocacy groups.

“When she sees a wrong, she speaks out,” says friend John Rocco Carlo, senior pastor of Christian Pentecostal Church in Staten Island, New York. “She’s willing to pay the price to bring a wrong to the open.”

Though single, Sliwa is not alone in her efforts. At the May protest, she was arrested along with Charles Jacobs, president of the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG); Roy Vogel, a Christian psychologist; and her brother, Curtis, founder of the community watchdog group Guardian Angels and co-host of the popular morning talk show Curtis & Kuby on WABC radio.

“[Maria] has a strong religious drive,” Curtis says. “Her faith must be translated into action.”

A scrappy conservative, Curtis has championed Maria’s activities many times on his show. During the 55th anniversary celebration of the United Nations in 2000, he and another Guardian Angel attempted a citizen’s arrest of Sudan President Lt. Gen. Omer Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir, who they say is responsible for atrocities against Christians.

“We were prepared to physically detain him,” Curtis says.

The general never appeared for a scheduled press conference and evaded the plot aimed at pressuring the U.S. government to aid Christians in Sudan.

Curtis was on hand at the May 2, 2001, protest even before his sister. Maria met her brother, Jacobs and Vogel in front of the Sudanese Mission on Third Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets, a busy midtown thoroughfare flanked by tall office buildings. Curtis wore his trademark Guardian Angels’ uniform–a red beret and red jacket.

A vocal group of 40 supporters from various denominations greeted them. The protesters also included local politicians and Sudanese Christians waving placards and enlarged photos of mutilated slaves.

The police set up barriers along the sidewalk, alert for trouble. Sliwa worked the press bull pen jammed with TV crews, and radio and newspaper reporters. She handed out press releases and plugged interviews for the demonstration speakers. Despite the hubbub, no one from the Sudanese Mission appeared.

After the speeches, the Sliwas, Vogel and Jacobs linked arms and sat down on the crowded sidewalk. While passers-by stepped over the foursome, a nervous-looking officer approached carrying a bullhorn.

“What you are doing is in violation of the law,” he read from a prepared statement. “You are blocking pedestrian traffic. If you don’t move you will be arrested.”

When the group refused to leave, four officers appeared and handcuffed them. They were escorted to a blue-and-white New York Police Department wagon and driven to the 17th Precinct, an old station house that has seen better days.

Maria was frisked with her colleagues, who were shoved into the men’s holding cell. Sliwa was handcuffed to a chair in a shabby, windowless room. The four endured the confinement for about eight hours. They opted for a summons to appear in court and were released. Charges were dropped late last year.

Despite their discomfort, the protesters accomplished their objective of focusing attention on Sudan. The event hit evening TV and radio news programs and was covered in the New York Post and New York Daily News. “I was grateful for the press coverage,” Maria says. “It was worth it.”

Breaking the Silence

Observers sometimes wonder what makes Maria Sliwa go to such lengths for strangers halfway around the world. Raised in Canarsie, a blue-collar section of Brooklyn, Sliwa grew up with a strong work ethic and an awareness of her civic responsibility. When injustice reared its ugly head, Sliwa’s parents taught her: “Don’t just squawk. Do something about it.”

Though they had been percolating since childhood, Sliwa’s activist genes first erupted in 1985. While attending the New York City Police Academy, she witnessed flagrant sexual and racial abuses against female recruits and officers. She was harassed, too, because of her brother’s high visibility in the Guardian Angels. His safety patrols in crime-ridden neighborhoods irked police officials.

Instead of playing it safe, Sliwa called the Internal Affairs Division (IAD) anonymously. Aware of similar allegations, the IAD persuaded her to name the offenders, promising confidentiality. A formal investigation followed, but her involvement was leaked to the press. She was devastated. Joining a “blue wall of silence,” male officers tried to stymie her revelations.

Rank-and-file cops cursed her. Professors and students at the academy shunned her like the plague. When you “drop the dime,” or tell on fellow officers, “you’re considered a rat,” she says.

The only people who stuck up for her were black officers and born-again Christians. “I thought the Christians were weird,” she recalls.

She was transferred from the academy into a special investigations unit at the IAD. She landed an undercover assignment, a coveted fast-track promotion slot. Yet the
harassment intensified and became violent. The powerful police union pressured headquarters to return her to street patrol. “I knew that meant death,” she says.

Believing she had no other option, Sliwa resigned. After waitressing at Pizza Hut, she landed a job as a peace officer for the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission. For several years life was good. She won a promotion to the Tactical Narcotics Task Force and worked alongside federal and state law-enforcement officers. She raced unmarked squad cars up and down New York City streets and alleys, investigating drug rings and arresting dealers.

Then a failed marriage, an abusive boyfriend and boredom on her job soured the excitement. “I started feeling empty inside,” she says.

God intervened in 1991. Sliwa dusted off a Bible a Christian friend had given her as a wedding present and for the first time dug into the Scriptures with an open mind. She discussed spiritual concerns with her friend, who invited her to a Pentecostal church on Long Island, where she surrendered her life to Christ. “I got radically saved,” she says.

Several weeks later she was baptized in the Holy Spirit at Christian Pentecostal Church. “It gave me a new boldness I never had,” she says. “I knew then my whole life would be devoted to the Lord.”

Urged to get a college degree, she took a leave of absence from the taxi commission and enrolled at St. John’s University at age 35. While studying criminal justice and sociology, she worked part time for a private detective agency run by Bo Dietl, a tough-as-nails ex-street cop known for his crime-busting feats. She honed her researching skills chasing down cheating spouses in divorce cases and running the agency’s white-collar crime unit after she graduated in 1994.

Active in various ministries, Sliwa also did street evangelism and joined short-term mission trips to Croatia, Cuba, Russia, Colombia and Peru. Along the way she earned a master’s degree. But her real turning point came in 1998.

En route to Madras, India, to handle press relations for P.P. Job, a well-known Indian evangelist, Sliwa stopped in Los Angeles. At the request of a friend, she visited the late Richard Wurmbrand, founder of Voice of the Martyrs. Terminally ill in bed at home, Wurmbrand unburdened his concerns about persecution in Sudan.

“Can you imagine little boys and girls raped in the most heinous ways?” he told her. “My house is a house of horrors. Every day I get faxes from around the world of Christians that are suffering unimaginably because of their faith.”

Weak and being fed intravenously, with feeding tubes protruding, Wurmbrand entreated Sliwa to aid suffering Christians. “He begged me to do something about the children of Sudan,” she says.

She says the Holy Spirit filled the room, overwhelming her. “I surrendered it all to the Lord,” she says. “I didn’t know how to help. It was too big for me.”

But within minutes of her leaving the bedroom, Wurmbrand and his wife, Sabina, each independently encouraged Sliwa with Joshua 1:9–“‘Be strong and of good courage.'” Wondering how one person could make a difference, she prayed: “Please help the children of Sudan. Lord, I’m helpless. I don’t know what to do.”

Doors opened soon after. She joined an 11-day hunger strike to pressure the city of New York to divest its pension-fund investment in Talisman Energy, a Canadian oil
and-gas firm with financial ties to Sudan. The Islamic government uses oil revenue to finance military action against Christians.

Publicity surrounding the hunger strike forced the New York City Council to hold hearings on the issue. She won the ear of city comptroller Alan Hevesi, who pressured the pension fund to sell 180,000 shares of Talisman. This would be the first of many small victories.

A Saint and a Warrior

Sliwa cut the cord from Dietl Investigations in 2000 to devote her full energy to defending suffering Christians. She gives lectures at churches, colleges, community groups and public hearings, and offers research and media assistance to advocacy groups such as Christian Solidarity International and the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

She also accompanies emancipated Sudanese Christians on speaking tours and reports their remarks in her news service. Francis Bok Bol, an escaped slave from Sudan’s Dinka tribe, describes Sliwa as someone who “is working hard for my people.”

A representative for the AASG in the greater New York City area, Sliwa works closely with AASG President Charles Jacobs, an Orthodox Jew who empathizes with enslaved Christians. “We more than anybody else know what happens when the world is silent,” he says, referring to the Holocaust. “The Christians in Sudan are the Jews of our time.”

Jacobs says he admires Sliwa’s fervor. “She suffers the pain of people in the worst of circumstances. She’s a saint, and she’s a warrior,” he says.

Not connected to a particular denomination or political ideology, Sliwa eschews labels but considers herself a servant of the persecuted church. “Morning, noon and night I see the persecuted church,” she says. “Their cries are always with me.”

Sliwa urges Pentecostals and charismatics to join the struggle. She says secular media and government contacts badger her, asking where the church stands on these issues. Sliwa says Christians should lobby their elected officials by writing letters and calling congressional offices urging the U.S. government to intervene on behalf of their persecuted brothers and sisters in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and China.

The church also needs to break out of its shell and communicate intelligently with the secular media, she adds. That means tabling religious lingo and pressing the “human rights” hot button. “You must approach the press in a way they understand,” she says.

If believers don’t get more proactive on this issue, Sliwa believes they could lose a valuable opportunity to speak out for Jesus. She has observed that non-Christian groups are becoming more vocal about atrocities against Christians. “The secular world sees this as a heavy-duty human rights issue,” she says. “Therefore they want to jump in.”

Familiar with the brutality of Muslim fundamentalists, Sliwa sees September 11 as a wake-up call to the church at large. “I was not shocked about the disaster at the World Trade Center,” she says. “The mind-set of radical Muslims is clear. They hate Christians and Jews. We are infidels.”

She believes the attack is a forerunner to a movement bent on world domination. She openly criticizes the Bush administration for “schmoozing” with Arab nations and allowing the United Nations to lift sanctions against Sudan. “We sold Sudanese Christians down the river,” she says.

Sliwa plans many media events and protests in 2002, but more than ever she is determined to goad the church into action. “Christians should be yelling and screaming about the 31 countries where brothers and sisters are being brutalized because of their faith,” she says.

That’s what Sliwa will be doing until someone finally listens.

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Peter K. Johnson is a New York City-based writer and frequent contributor to Charisma.

What do non-Christians really think of you and your faith? Charisma’s conversations with the unchurched might help you reach the unbelievers you encounter every day.
It could have been an irreverent sketch on something like Saturday Night Live. A roomful of pastors and evangelists were sitting in their chairs and biting their tongues while the guy on stage with the microphone told them why he didn’t believe in their God.

But this was no comedy routine. It was a real-life role reversal that began with the Christian faithful who had assembled taking a “pledge of kindness” in which they promised not to preach but to listen–while asking the Holy Spirit
to “speak to me,” not to the unbelievers
present.

Chris, on stage with the mike, was one of three non-Christians invited to talk about what he thought of born-again believers and their faith at a conference intended to hold a sometimes unflattering mirror up to the typical church and force Christian leaders to reflect on some of the reasons for the gulf between churches and the people outside.

Chris told how he felt “cheated” by the sneaky church event he had attended as a youngster. He’d been told a pro footballer was going to speak, but before he knew it everyone was being asked to bow their heads and pray.

Then there was the “born-again” guy at work with a Christian fish symbol on his business cards. He was always preaching, but the man’s words and actions often didn’t match what Chris considered to be decent Christian behavior.

“His fish kind of stinks,” he quipped.

Chris said he believed in God and that Jesus died for his sins. “I consider myself a Christian. I don’t hurt other people. To me I am doing the right thing.” But he also noted that he believed in reincarnation.

Chris and his unorthodox views may have been in the minority at the Off the Map (see story on page 43) event at New Beginnings Church in Seattle, at which he was asked to share his beliefs with the group of charismatic and evangelical leaders. Outside of that setting, however, he is far from alone.

As Charisma found in a series of interviews with average nonchurchgoers across the country, a great many who consider themselves to be spiritual or religious have little or no time for church or the people who go there. Though Christians will celebrate the Resurrection this month, the good news simply isn’t for a lot of their relatives, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

And despite the fact that most opinion polls show a high percentage of the American population–80 percent or more–considers itself Christian, that belief is not matched by the number of people in the pews on Sundays. Even the widely reported “turning to God” that was prompted by the September 11 terrorist attacks did not last long. Church attendance returned to normal levels within a matter of weeks–even while there was still talk of a new spiritual openness in the nation.

What keeps people away? Charisma’s diverse encounters, with everyone from businessmen and barroom philosophers to students and senior citizens, found a variety of reasons that offer a serious challenge to the body of Christ.

Some, like Chris, have been bruised by past encounters. Joyce in Orlando, Florida, believes that “people show their best side at church.”

“They go and become very placid and forgiving, and then on the way out they run you over in the parking lot,” she says. “I wish people could hold onto those good feelings they have in church a bit longer.”

Young, a Los Angeles accountant, sees “a lot of people who claim to be Christians, then whenever Sunday is over, they are not what they seem to be in church.”

Church? What’s That?

But for the most part, Charisma’s conversations revealed an even harsher reality: It is not that people do not think much of the church. It is that they do not think of the church, much. Religion, faith, God, Jesus simply are not on their personal radar screens.

Jim Henderson, the man who interviewed Chris in front of the believers who attended Off the Map, observes: “It’s all fairly irrelevant to [non-Christians’] lives. It’s not something they notice. If the mall and the church disappeared tomorrow, which would people miss most? The answer speaks to the irrelevancy of our institution in our culture.”

He could have been talking about Matt and Stacey, a young couple who were strolling hand-in-hand in a mall one recent Sunday morning. Matt said he had last been to church during high school.

“It was great; I enjoyed it. But in this day and age, with so little time on our hands, I don’t believe you have to go to church to believe in God. If people have the time, that’s great, but it’s 3-1/2 hours I can’t afford.”

Many believers–whether it’s because their view is fueled by Christian groups relentlessly portraying the “world” as the enemy of conservative values or because they lack their own personal connection with nonchurchgoers–seem to think that those outside the church are vehemently opposed to their faith.

“Christians tend to think of non-Christians as hardcore pagans,” observes Thom Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, “[having] no level of receptivity to the gospel–maybe even antagonistic towards the church, if not belligerent. Many active Christians tend to think in black-and-white terms.”

Meanwhile those outside are increasingly thinking in terms of postmodern gray, in which there are no absolutes and everyone’s own idea of what is true is equally valid.

“The only thing I don’t like about Christianity is the teaching that there are no other possibilities out there,” says Dina, making the point. “The broad proclamation that Christianity is the only correct choice seems to me to be what breeds hatred, why people beat up and kill in the name of God.”

Nor are such views held exclusively by the young. Middle-aged Gary thinks churches have some good things to teach, but “then [they] tend to think that it is necessary to throw in the fact that [theirs] is the only way to reach salvation, through their particular institution.”

“And I have trouble with that,” he says. “At some point or another they [are] always knocking someone else’s religion.”

Todd Hunter, the former national head of the Vineyard church movement who now coaches church planters, says such views are part of the legacy of “the death of Christendom” in the United States. He says that although there are regional pockets where Christianity is still an influence, for the most part “it’s over.”

But that can present more of an opportunity than an obstacle, he believes, noting how throughout history the church has often thrived most when it was on the fringes. He adds, however, that “the way we conceive of being and doing church will have to be significantly different.”

When churches no longer hold the central place in society they once did, the gospel they proclaim is more typically dismissed than derided. Rainer’s long-term study of unchurched people found that only 5 percent could be classified as extremely resistant to the gospel.

“People had overwhelmingly positive views of the church in general,” he says. “Most just did not perceive the church to relate to their life right now.”

Chris has visited several different churches in the last few years and has found the services variously “entertaining, useless, informative, depressing and uplifting.” None of his experiences were meaningful enough to make him want to go back again, though.

The last time Bob was in church was as a child, and he couldn’t wait to leave. He doesn’t see any value in organized religion.

“I consider religion or belief in some kind of higher power to be a very personal thing. I have my own philosophies and beliefs that don’t require me to worship a deity or to seek comfort in some kind of group-think.”

Mindy believes in God and thinks churches are good for the community, but she doesn’t attend.

“I worship God my own way. During the holidays and Christmas I think about God. I watch The Ten Commandments at Easter and do my own little special prayers. I can tell myself which way is wrong. I try to do it myself.”

Wanted: Non-Christians

Chris, Bob and Mindy highlight for pastor and TV host Jim Reeve one of the main problems–that “the way we do church is not touching your average person out there in America.” The senior pastor of the 6,000-strong Faith Community Church in West Covina, California, discovered a whole new world when he went out and talked to nonbelievers on the streets, conducting walkabout, Jay Leno-like interviews for his weekly Balanced Living TV show.

When people were asked to name a famous evangelist, he says: “About half had heard of Billy Graham, but none had heard of T.D. Jakes. So the people who we [in the church] think are big names, they have no idea of.”

His interviews confirmed for him that “people are not so much turned off to Jesus as they are turned off to the church.” His conclusion was echoed by a recent discussion thread about faith at a teen-agers’ Web site, which was titled: “I believe in God and Jesus, but not the church.”

Recognizing that a lot of Christians lose contact with the unchurched world the longer they have been believers, Reeve began encouraging his people to make a point of finding “the needs, wants and perceptions of the nonbeliever.”

Members have gone out to movie theaters–which Reeve says could almost be considered “the sanctuaries of the new millennium”–to strike up casual conversations.

When he was pastoring, Rainer used to pay a non-Christian to visit and critique the church from time to time. “It really opened our eyes,” he recalled. Off the Map’s Henderson advocates the same idea but observes that when most churches address issues involving non-Christians they prefer to role-play than to involve real-life outsiders.
“Do we think we are going to get polluted or something?” he asks.

Chris Maxwell doesn’t just ask non-Christians their opinions, he has been known to elicit their help in preparing sermons. Before a recent wedding, the Orlando pastor walked along the beach and asked people what he should tell the couple about married life. His subsequent message included the plea of a beer-drinking divorcé Maxwell had met for the newlyweds to remain faithful and not make the mistakes that had led to the end of his marriage.

Maxwell is sometimes surprised by the anger of those he talks with.

“They don’t believe God exists, but they blame Him when things go wrong,” he notes. But he keeps asking questions: “I want to know why they blame Him. I want to get to their inner pain, what they are feeling.”

Sadly, too many churches seem to prefer monologue to dialogue, laments Brian McLaren, pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland, and a leading thinker on evangelism in postmodern society.

“We talk, talk, talk, broadcast, publish, we don’t listen,” he says, noting that on the rare times we do, it doesn’t last long.

“With the first statement that we hear that makes us uncomfortable, we launch into more preaching, telling people why they’re wrong or shouldn’t feel that way,” he says. “We turn people outside the church into enemies with whom we are engaged in warfare, not lost sheep for whom the Shepherd cares and to whom we have been sent.”

Church: The Final Frontier

Yet, while many people out there may not be racing to get to church, a large proportion of them are like Sara, who used to attend the occasional service with Christian friends. All it would take for her to go again would be “just someone to call me and say, ‘Hey, let’s go [to church],'” she told Charisma.

Sara is like the vast majority of those Rainer interviewed, 96 percent of whom said they would go to church “if two things happen: somebody invites them and agrees to meet them and walk into the building with them.” It’s as simple as that, Rainer says. “Yet how many churches are holding their members to some level of expectation to be doing that?”

One reason for the reticence of so many Saras is that churches can be a scary place for the newcomer, offers Ali Hanna. “It’s hard for a pastor to understand,” said the U.S. director of Alpha, the low-key study course successfully used by mostly mainstream churches to draw those interested in exploring issues of faith. “They don’t know where to go, nobody takes them by the arm and shows them where to go. They might sit in the wrong place–in theaters they have different classes of seating–they don’t know why all the people are standing up.”

Rainer agrees, citing the disastrous story of an Arizona woman who decided to visit a church with her child after a divorce. She had trouble parking, found no details of service times and encountered locked doors. She reluctantly left her child with a nursery worker already caring for 18 other kids. When she finally got to the worship center she took a wrong turn and found herself standing in front of the congregation. She never went back.

The debacle confirms the view of pastor Rick Warren, whose Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, California, is one of the largest congregations in the country and known internationally for its “purpose-driven” approach to church growth.

In a recent message to fellow pastors, he observed that the four most common excuses people make for not attending church are not theological issues. Rather, people don’t understand the sermons, don’t feel welcome, think churches are after their money and are concerned about leaving their children with strangers, he said.

“The truth is, many people are very open to learning about God and spiritual issues, they just don’t feel welcome at church or feel that it has anything to offer them,” he wrote. “That is our problem.”

Back in Seattle, Chris had some final words of advice for the Off the Map attendees: “If you want someone to do what you do, don’t try to convince them. Live your life and be yourself. I have had people come up to me and ask, ‘Do you know if you are going to heaven?’ or preaching, and it really turned me off. I don’t want anything to do with people like that.”

Three mainstream authors look for Him, but can’t find Him.

Joe Kita gave it his best, but to paraphrase the words of a U2 song, he still didn’t find what he was looking for. “Never being able to find God” was one of the major midlife regrets he confronted for a chapter in his recent book, Another Shot: How I Relived My Life in Less Than a Year.

Raised Roman Catholic, the Men’s Health magazine executive writer visited several churches with his family in an earnest attempt to reconnect with the faith that had somehow passed him by.

He was impressed by the sincerity of the people and the music at a Baptist church, but “things kind of spun out of control from there, and I didn’t know what was going on. What is speaking in tongues? Do people really get healed?” His family’s disinterest in returning was probably “more ignorance on our part than dislike,” he muses, “but I guess all dislike springs from ignorance.”

Open as he was to finding some deeper sense of meaning at church, his search failed. His Sunday mornings are once more spent cycling in the Pennsylvania countryside “appreciating all the things that God has given us.”

“It’s not like I don’t believe in God. I consider myself a very religious and spiritual person, but not in the context of organized religion,”he says.

Kita describes himself as “a deeply spiritual skeptic,” while Matthew Chapman was more just deeply skeptical when he visited churches in Dayton, Tennessee. The great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin and a Hollywood scriptwriter with a drinking problem, Chapman expected to visit the town’s annual re-enactment of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial that challenged the teaching of his famous forebear’s controversial theory and write a wry commentary.

Although he found some of the expressions of Bible-believing faith odd and even at times objectionable, he wrote in Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir that “if I went down an atheist, I came back an agnostic.”

Chapman recalled that he had “never felt so magnificently so happy” than when he had believed in God as a child and even dreamed of being a missionary. Now, though it would be, he says, “more pleasant to have faith,” he concludes that he is “too proud to abandon my agnosticism for organized religion or–almost worse–disorganized religion, that laughable stew of whimsical superstitions that constitutes the so-called New Age.”

After skewering the absurdities of the workplace so successfully through his popular Dilbert series, cartoonist Scott Adams turned his attention to religion in God’s Debris, a short story exploring the meaning of life, which he describes as “a thought experiment.”

While skeptics and “born agains” alike have dismissed him as “a shill for the other side,” he says, at least one church is using the book for a Bible class. Adams was raised Methodist until about 11, when he “reached that point where the descriptions of the miracles were not jibing with my day-to-day existence.”

He admits to becoming “increasingly confused” about the existence of God. “There are generally believed to be three answers to the question, ‘Do you believe in God?'” he says. “Yes, no, don’t know. I’m in the fourth category: ‘Could you define that?’

The Off the Map network wants Christians to change the way they present the gospel in a postmodern world.

When Jim Henderson interviews nonbelievers in front of a crowd of pastors, it’s the Christians he is trying to convert.

As one of the founders of Off the Map (OTM), a Seattle-based network exploring new forms of sharing faith in a postmodern world, he wants to change the way believers define and do evangelism. Through conferences and writings, the movement encourages Christians to see the unsaved as “missing” rather than “lost”–the latter being a term Henderson says is often meant in a derogatory way.

Henderson says evangelism should be more about the starting line–seeing people begin moving closer to God–than the finish line: “when you pray the prayer and are in.” Rather than asking nonbelievers for something–a decision–he believes Christians should be giving them something–their attention.

“That’s what God did with Jesus. He became like us,” he says.

Saved through the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s, Henderson has been involved in church planting with Pentecostal and Vineyard churches and now helps lead OTM. He quotes the Oriental classic The Art of War as well as the Bible and says too few Christians are involved in evangelism because of what the church has made it.

“What would it be like if evangelism was a normal part of everyday Christian life, like reading the Bible or praying?” he wonders. So OTM promotes evangelism as simply “Christians connecting with non-Christians” and documents stories of what it calls Ordinary Attempts in which acts of friendship lead to opportunities to talk about faith.

For Michael Howes, minister of adults at a Fort Worth, Texas, church, attending an OTM forum to hear nonbelievers talk about their beliefs and impressions was like “another conversion.” Having grown up in the church, it opened his eyes to how “outsiders” view the church.

After participating in OTM events, Chris Marshall, a church planter in Ohio, has changed the way he views the unchurched. Now rather than seeing them as “targets,” they are “fellow brothers and sisters,” and he says, “I no longer count conversions; rather, I count conversations, and God has been honoring that decision.”

That is one of the keys for Henderson. Too many people outside the church have had an unpleasant encounter with a boorish “born again,” he says. “The big complaint is that Christians don’t listen. They talk. They want to give a speech, but they don’t want to listen. The unchurched do want to talk to a Christian, but they don’t want to be talked at.”

Having to switch places at an OTM event where the unbeliever has the floor is uncomfortable for many.

“You can feel the tension, the anxiety,” he says. But that is the aim of his “surprise attack.”

He explains: “It’s about making them feel something. They don’t need more head knowledge–that won’t solve the problem. People do what they feel more than what they think. Experiences move people to take action. That’s why Jesus took people out to do things.”

By confronting pastors and others with the reality of how the “lost” think and feel, Henderson says: “I’m not asking them to agree with these people but to please for God’s sake help me understand why they are asking these questions, why they are saying what they are. It’s not their job to save us–they are not on a mission.” *

For more information about Off the Map, write to P.O. Box 1142, Lynnwood, WA 98046; or go to .

The Good Book is often judged unfairly by its threatening black cover. Some publishers are making the Scriptures more culturally relevant.

Trying to reach the unchurched in a way that is meaningful can cause tensions among believers, as people have discovered at the International Bible Society after taking a pair of scissors to the Scriptures.

Director of product development Glenn Paauw says that, far from abandoning the ministry’s 100-year-plus heritage of commitment to God’s Word, he and his team are simply trying to overcome the barriers that cause many people to dismiss the Bible as irrelevant or outdated.

But some have criticized the group’s stripping away of the accepted and printing individual books of the Bible in paperback-novel form, without chapter and verse notations. “The form is not holy,” contends Paauw. “It’s the text, the words; we want to get them in front of people in new ways.”

Research shows that 80 percent of people find the traditional format of the Bible “overwhelming, confusing, intimidating.” Paauw says: “The black leather Bible is loaded with cultural perceptions that are Bible-bashing religious right, intolerance towards gays, narrow-minded Christians.

“People are very open to Jesus, there’s a record number of books about Him. Everybody wants a piece of Jesus, but they drive a wedge between Him and the church and between Him and traditional Christianity. They don’t want that other stuff.

But with widespread ignorance about even the most basic Bible stories and teachings, “we have an opportunity to introduce it as a new book,” he says.

Paauw and his team at the society’s Colorado Springs, Colorado, headquarters scour magazines, television and the Internet for “cultural artifacts” that help them better understand the unchurched’s values and beliefs. Among the projects their research has prompted is the Discovering Ancient Wisdom series, which packages the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job, and some of the sayings of Jesus into a New Age-looking gift set for distribution among students. They advertise them in magazines such as New Age and the counterculture
Utne Reader.

Paauw believes that Christian groups can lose the plot–their reason for being–if they are not careful. Or they can be in too much of a hurry. “We [think we are] answering questions, but they aren’t even sure what the questions are yet.”

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Andy Butcher is senior writer for Charisma and editor of Charisma News Service. Reporters Steve Lawson and Jeff King interviewed people in Los Angeles and Seattle to provide quotes from unbelievers.

Because I publish books on health, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with some of our authors about this subject. We’ve discussed the fact that charismatics in general seem as unhealthy as the general public.

I have no statistics to support this observation. But the number of overweight Christians I’ve seen in prayer lines and the number I’ve known who have died of cancer or heart attacks have caused me to wonder why we who believe that divine health is part of the atonement don’t enjoy better health.

Of course many Christians have been healed–and many do enjoy good health. But to me the question illustrates a point the leaders of the renewal must consider: If we want to reach this generation, we must not only preach; we must also produce results. Otherwise, we are no different from people in the world.

Here are some other questions I think we need to ask:

**If we believe in revival, why isn’t our society being revived? Instead, we define what are simply exciting services as revival and then are disappointed when the apparent “revival” dies down.

**If we believe in stable marriages, why isn’t divorce more rare? Today more and more charismatic leaders are getting divorced. In light of this trend, how are we going to help those in the pew who are struggling to keep their marriages strong?

**If we believe in deliverance from addictions, why are so many Christians as bound as they were before they started attending a charismatic church?

**If we believe the power of the Holy Spirit transforms lives, why isn’t the difference more visible? We should be like homeschooling advocates who boast that kids taught at home perform better on standardized tests than their public school counterparts–the scores prove the validity of their claim.

**If we believe the Word of God mandates forgiveness, why are so many Christians offended?

**If we believe in the fivefold ministry, why aren’t there apostles and prophets who are calling the church to holiness and wayward leaders to repentance?

**If we believe in the gifts of the Spirit, why aren’t these gifts more manifest in the church–rather than being evident primarily in those with traveling ministries?

One of the things the charismatic movement has always had going for it is that it provides hope to people looking for help. It offers life instead of dead religion.

But where are the results? Of course there are many. We report them month after month, and we are careful to document the facts in the articles we run. But it is also true that people often leave our churches disillusioned and hopeless.

It reminds me of the hamburger ad aired regularly several years ago that asked, “Where’s the beef?”

In the 1980s, American business was forced to take a hard look at itself when nations such as Japan began producing better products at a lower cost. Competing with this Far Eastern nation caused a lot of things to change for the better as far as business is concerned.

The church is competing, too–with numerous false doctrines and “isms” that promise hope and happiness. Are we able to show the world that we believe what we say we believe–and have the results to back it up?

One of the many things I admire about Fred Price is that he sees results when he preaches from the Word about faith. When his wife, Betty, had cancer more than 10 years ago he stood in faith for her healing, and she continues to be healed today.

In Old Testament times, Moses often went before God on behalf of the children of Israel–and saw them delivered from Pharaoh and many other afflictions. Gideon proved God to be true when he led the Israelites into battle against the Midianites at God’s command and gained what appeared to be an impossible victory.

In New Testament times, the early church turned the world as they knew it upside down by their boldness and faith. Yet in the natural they had no power against the dominant Romans, who had established one of the most tyrannical empires in the history of mankind.

Jesus said we’d do greater works than He did. It’s time for us to prove there was some meat to His words.

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Stephen Strang is founder and publisher of Charisma.

Many American Christian leaders have rightly bemoaned one paradox of American life. It is this: America, by any reckoning in the world is a “religious” country. Almost 40 percent of the population are in church on any Sunday, and 75 percent say they are “Christian.”

Yet the overall impact of the Christian presence on the life of America is clearly weak and at times barely discernible at all. Christians just aren’t considered credible or taken very seriously by society at large.

Why? The answer is simple. Americans who say they are born-again Christians are failing to live lives that are recognizably different from those of the population at large.

Examples of this are legion. TV-watching hours are the same for evangelicals as for Americans in general. Divorce is now the same for Christians as non-Christians. More than half of so-called evangelicals don’t believe in absolute moral standards.

George Barna, a respected Christian researcher, is deeply sobered by it all. He finds that increasing numbers of Christians either don’t believe any form of immoral behavior is entirely unacceptable or tolerate anything as long as it is “legal.” He says that the gap in attitudes on moral issues between committed Christians and Americans at large tends to be barely more than 10 percent. That’s not enough.

Barna explains: “If you want to influence society you need to be different by at least 20 percent [on key moral and ethical issues].” He says that among American churches today there is, overall, “no accountability, no suffering, no moral benchmarks.” He is surely right.

Furthermore, since Old Testament times there seem to have been only two reliable antidotes to progressive moral decline among God’s people. One
is persecution. The other is repentance by the believers.

Old Testament prophets thundered out warnings of God’s judgment if immoral behavior by the Israelites was not amended. Often prophet and people alike lived to see the warnings borne out.

In the Christian era, the equivalent often has been persecution. Before 1949, the church in China sometimes was referred to as “rice Christians”–people who joined simply for economic advantage.

But after more than half a century of persecution the Chinese church has grown faster than any in Christian history, producing heroic martyrs, leaders and teachers. Horrendous persecution in China during the 1950s and 1960s led first to the purification of the church, and then to one of the greatest outpourings of the Holy Spirit and growth in numbers in 2,000 years.

Now, no sane person would ever deliberately wish a fellow Christian to be persecuted. It’s entirely possible, of course, that the Lord could see persecution of the church in America as the only way of purifying it and waking it up. But it’s also sensible to believe that God is still patient and will allow His people to return to moral wholeness by initiating our own repentance for our backslidden condition.

Where it must start, of course, is in Christian leadership. It must be the pastors and leaders who utter the call to repentance and who, in humility, demand that their flocks live out lives of Christian decency.

They must start demanding that those who claim to be church members demonstrate lives of visible moral purity. They should insist on tithing as the norm for Christian charity and a requirement for anyone seeking a leadership position in the church. And church members should support their pastors in requiring these standards of their flocks and in disciplining those who transgress them.

Does this sound like military discipline? Of course it does. But are we not fighting a spiritual war? What troops ever rallied to victory where no one respected or paid attention to the senior officers?

The time for Christian sloppiness, laziness, moral corruption and excuses is over. Let’s be willing to be disciplined soldiers, and let’s pray for God to raise up officers who will have the courage and discipline to lead us into this discipline.

 

When I was a child, I lived with prolonged uncertainty about my parent’s marriage. To hide my anxiety, I tried to become the proverbial “perfect child.” This caused me so much internal stress that my immune system was weakened. As a result, I suffered from numerous illnesses: rheumatic fever, mitral valve prolapse, systemic yeast infections, gastrointestinal problems, severe hormonal imbalance, Epstein-Barr virus and more.

Seven years ago things took a turn for the worse when my father, who had left my mother 30 years before, returned to my hometown with his new wife. Within weeks he was diagnosed with brain cancer and died. Needless to say, I was devastated; this was the second time in my life that I had lost him.

Still reeling from his death, I entered a time of even greater stress in my personal life. I had an emergency hysterectomy, my brother became addicted to drugs, my husband and I had marital problems, my oldest child left for college, my middle child rebelled, my youngest child was diagnosed with a learning disorder, and in the midst of it all, I was working on my Ph.D. in nutrition.

My situation looked bleak. I began to experience crippling panic attacks.

One night I admitted my helplessness to God. I fell on my face and cried out: “Dear God! I am completely broken.” The answer came instantly, “You must go through it to get to it.”

That night, I rededicated my life to the Lord. He filled me with His peace, joy and love, and they overflowed into every area of my life. He also gave me valuable insight about my emotional, physical and spiritual health.

With a renewed spirit, I turned to the world of natural medicine. I removed all the obstacles to healing, including sugar, caffeine, wheat and dairy. I detoxified my body using specific herbs to cleanse the blood, liver, colon and kidneys.

I drank pure spring water and ate natural foods. If it did not rot or sprout, I did without! I replaced dairy with soy or rice milk. I ate millet bread instead of bread made with white flour.

I drank a green drink each day that was loaded with chlorophyll for healthy blood and for cleansing benefits. I ate nothing that would worsen my yeast problem and used anti-fungal herbs, acidophilus, and digestive enzymes to rebalance my digestive and intestinal tracts.

In less than six months, I was glowing with health. It was a miracle! I had rebalanced my body in spite of the fact that it had been weak for so long.

But I still had to find an answer for the panic attacks that appeared suddenly four or five times a day. Searching for the cause of these, I discovered groundbreaking information about the brain.

Just as other parts of our body become depleted when undue stress is placed on them, so does the brain. The brain starves because it must have amino acids, the building blocks of protein, to keep brain function optimal. Protein is used by the brain to repair, rebuild and create the neurotransmitters that dampen anxiety and curb depression.

GABA is one amino acid that is particularly important in this process. It can be used to prevent the area of the brain where anxiety is generated from overfiring and producing an excess of adrenaline. GABA is a natural alternative to anti-anxiety medications. When I started taking it, the results were no less than amazing.

Today I am whole, healed and set free from the past and all its pain. My life is dedicated to helping God’s people live “totally healed” in their bodies, minds and spirits.

But I was the patient before I became the doctor. God allowed me to walk through a myriad of illnesses so that I would be able to understand other people’s pain.

Don’t be afraid to “go through it to get to it,” as I did. Job went through it, the disciples went through it, and Jesus Himself went through it. But there is purpose on the other side of your trial.

So keep your body nourished, your mind free from worry and your spirit fed from the Word of God. And take comfort in the knowledge that Jesus is “with you always” (Matt. 28:20, NKJV).

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Janet C. Maccaro, Ph.D., ., is a leading expert on natural health. She holds doctorates in nutrition and naturopathy and appears frequently on national radio and TV programs. She is the author of 90-Day Immune System Makeover and Breaking the Grip of Dangerous Emotions (Siloam Press). Maccaro lives in Central Florida with her husband and three children.

On football’s biggest day, Christians used the matchup between the St. Louis Rams and the New England Patriots as an opportunity to spread the gospel.
When the St. Louis Rams and the New England Patriots squared off for Super Bowl XXXVI, their passionate fans encountered some people just as zealous about their own passion: Jesus Christ.

New Orleans turned into a major mission field in early February for Christians who reached out to thousands of visitors when the “Big Easy” concurrently hosted for the first time pro football’s biggest event and the raucous annual Mardi Gras celebration.

“For a lot of football fans, the game is their religion,” says Loy Seal, director of church growth for the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans. “They treat it as a spiritual experience, and the high holy day is Super Bowl Sunday. These outreaches that we have aim to take the gospel to those in the stands.”

From one-on-one witnessing ventures in the French Quarter to a prayer walk inside the Superdome–where the Super Bowl was played–area churches of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) sponsored more than 20 outreaches for the National Football League’s (NFL) premier game. SBC officials said 35 people became Christians through the different ministries.

In addition, the charismatic church that Rams quarterback Kurt Warner attends bused a group from St. Louis to hand out football cards featuring the devoted Christian and other players on the team. Warner’s pastor declined to talk with Charisma about the church’s tailgate ministry because of its low-key approach.

No Arm-Chair Christians

The day before the big game, the NFL also had its own outreach in one of the ballrooms at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, located adjacent to the Superdome. The evangelistic event featured testimonies and Scripture quotations from Christian players and an invitation for fans to pray to receive Christ.

“It’s amazing how much attention the Super Bowl gets,” said Walt Day, 42, chaplain of the Patriots, who attended the 15th annual NFL-sanctioned Super Bowl Breakfast. “This [breakfast] is just a great opportunity to broadly sow the gospel. Some people will come closer to God, but this could also be the first step for a lot of people in terms of having a relationship with the Lord.”

Televised on the PAX TV network, the invitation-only event drew 800 businessmen, youngsters, and NFL stars and coaches, including Darrell Green, Chris Carter and Dave Wannstedt.

Sponsored by Athletes in Action (AIA), a Xenia, Ohio-based sports ministry, the event featured the Bart Starr Award (BSA), which is given to a Christian NFL player who exemplifies outstanding character and leadership at home, on the field and in the community. Past winners include Steve Largent, Mike Singletary, Reggie White and Aeneas Williams.

“There was a time if you were a Christian in the NFL, not many people stood up,” emcee and Super Bowl sportscaster Pat Summerall, 71, told the audience. “People more and more are saying, ‘I’m a Christian, and I’m proud of it.’ An old song says, ‘You can’t be a beacon if your light don’t shine.'”

Green, a 42-year-old defensive back for the Washington Redskins, told the audience that his “desire as a player is to impact the world.”

“The true impact comes from presenting the gospel,” said Green, a future NFL Hall of Fame inductee and previous BSA winner. “It’s not just talking about it, but living the life of Jesus Christ.”

An avid Dallas Cowboys fan, Paul Castaldo said the number of Christian players and coaches at the breakfast made an impression on him. “I was really surprised at how everything was about Jesus,” said the 29-year-old Orlando, Florida-area resident who traveled to New Orleans with two friends.

Chan Gingras, a St. Petersburg, Florida, resident who attended the breakfast with Castaldo, said the various speakers encouraged his faith. “I thought it was interesting to see how little attention the secular press gave an event that had so many famous athletes and such a positive message,” Gingras, 29, said.

Glen Henley, a New Orleans resident and another Christian, called the event “pretty amazing” for its Christ-centered theme. “It’s almost a miracle that the NFL is this involved in proclaiming Christ,” Henley, 53, said.

Doug Greengard, 40, a sportscaster who founded a sports ministry in the New Orleans area, was “very impressed” with the outreach.

“This is awesome because it impacts the influential executive who can afford to go to the Super Bowl but perhaps has never darkened the doorway of a church,” said Greengard, who serves as the New Orleans Saints chaplain.

AIA national director Will Pugh said that since the event started in the late 1980s hundreds have come to Christ. In addition to being invited to say the sinner’s prayer, those who came to the breakfast were asked to fill out comment cards. Pugh said AIA follows up with those who make spiritual decisions and encourages them to connect with a church in their community.

“This, to me, represents why we do what we do,” said Pugh, noting that the breakfast is AIA’s largest outreach of the year. “The heart behind it is to boldly proclaim the love and truth of Christ and to develop and mobilize co-laborers–all the winners of the award–for a global harvest through the sports platform.”

Pugh said the NFL’s stamp of approval on the event is a “big time” blessing. “I think the sovereignty and favor of God is with the event,” said Pugh, noting that there has never been a controversy over the event’s direct gospel presentation. “There’s a lot of credibility and respect with the winners of this award. That is a message that resonates regardless of religious or spiritual background.”

NFL hall of famer and past BSA recipient Anthony Muñoz, 43, agreed. “I really believe it’s a God-thing that He has given us this platform,” Muñoz, co-chairman of the breakfast, told Charisma. “It’s become a great vehicle to touch the hearts of people with the gospel.”

Evangelism: A Team Effort

Besides the breakfast, other similar outreaches featuring testimonies of Christian NFL players also were held the day before the Super Bowl at area churches.

Greengard’s ministry presented a free event at Victory Fellowship with Kansas City Chiefs place-kicker Todd Peterson and Patriots wide receiver Torrance Small. Held at Greengard’s home church in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb, the event attracted 300 people.

“In the midst of Super Bowl events that cost something to attend, I thought it’s important to offer something that’s free because the greatest gift is salvation, and it cost nothing,” said Greengard, who wants to hold a similar free outreach in every Super Bowl city. “This was a great opportunity to reach young people and the middle-class football fan who may have no idea about having a personal relationship with Jesus.”

A desire to present the gospel sometime during the Rams and Patriots contest motivated 14 area SBC churches to hold free Super Bowl “watch parties.” Typically, these featured the game on a big-screen television, as well as food, entertainment for children and NFL-related giveaways.

Seal, the church-growth director of the city’s Baptist association, said tailgate outreaches attracted more than 1,600 people. Nine people prayed to receive Christ, and seven recommitted their lives to the Lord during the casual gatherings.

Area Baptists also worked behind the scenes to convey the gospel message discreetly. Tim Knopps, an Oklahoma City evangelist, said the SBC provided 700, or 10 percent, of the 7,000 volunteers who assisted putting together Super Bowl-related events.

Among them were 350 Baptist-seminary students who placed complementary seat cushions and souvenirs on the 70,000-plus seats of the Superdome. The task turned into a prayer walk when the students started to pray for each person who would be sitting in the stands.

“It’s subtle, but a very powerful gospel tool to impact the Super Bowl,” said Knopps, 42, who has served as an outreach consultant to the SBC for five Super Bowls. “We prayed an SOS prayer for each seat. S stands for salvation so that every person would know Jesus. O is for obedience so that Christians and non-Christians would obey God. And S stands for safety so that every person would be protected by the hand of God.”

While unprecedented security measures garnered plenty of media attention, the little-known prayer effort helped ensure that “the Superdome was the safest place in America on Super Bowl Sunday,” Knopps said.

“The NFL was very appreciative of the prayers. One lady from the NFL told us: ‘You mean every seat has a blessing on it? That is so cool,'” Knopps recalled her saying.

One of the leaders of the Baptist volunteer staff, Knopps and some of the seminary students took the gospel to the NFL Experience, an interactive theme park that drew thousands to the convention center in downtown New Orleans.

“We didn’t get to witness to the mass of visitors, but the goal was to possibly share Jesus with the other volunteers who live in the community,” he said. “When volunteers work together, inevitably one will ask another, ‘How did you become a volunteer?’

“We encouraged our volunteers to say, ‘Our church got a group together to come down here,'” Knopps added. “If you can’t turn that conversation towards Jesus by talking about your church, then you’re going to the wrong church.”

Matchup on Bourbon Street

Talking about Jesus to football fans and Mardi Gras revelers was the method of operation for about 12 street evangelists who distributed tracts and witnessed to strangers on the city’s notoriously raucous Bourbon Street. SBC officials said they prayed with 26 people to receive Jesus during their street-witnessing excursions.

“Most of us here don’t care about the game or the party atmosphere,” said Ed Human, 74, who along with his teammates came from different parts of the country to evangelize New Orleans during Super Bowl week. “We’re here because we care about the souls of these people.”

Seal, who plans to coordinate an evangelistic outreach next month for a Professional Golfers Association event in New Orleans, echoed Human’s comments. “People come to New Orleans to sin,” Seal, 51, said. “Our job is to show them there is forgiveness for sin in Jesus Christ.”

The evangelists’ outpost was at Vieux Carre Baptist Church, the only SBC church in the French Quarter. On the eve of the Super Bowl, Human’s group “blitzed” Bourbon Street, as they sought to pass out Super Bowl-theme tracts and Christian magazines.

“We’re going to invade Bourbon Street with these T-shirts that say: ‘Jesus is coming. Are you ready?'” noted Human, a Colleyville, Texas, resident who has proselytized in 17 Super Bowls and 34 Mardi Gras. “You go out there expecting God to save everyone you come in contact with.”

After praying in a circle at Vieux Carre Baptist, the evangelists left the church located in a storefront building on Dauphine Street and headed toward Bourbon Street, where they were met with a loud roar from what appeared to be an ocean of partygoers.

Not surprisingly, they encountered a few hecklers who mockingly welcomed their presence by shouting, “Jesus!” Because of the large crowd and chaotic atmosphere, the evangelists became separated, but they kept their focus.

“Their mind is on partying right now,” explained Lance Engst, who along with his wife, Katie, were evangelizing their first Super Bowl and Mardi Gras. “But one of the things we believe is that they will take a tract, and when they’re feeling sober, they’ll be able to get to this information.”

One out of three revelers willingly accepted the tracts and magazines, but some of the literature also was discarded later.

“We’re called to scatter the seeds,” said Sandy Nelson, 54, who traveled to New Orleans from Nevis, Minnesota, with her husband and the Engsts. “The rest is up to the Lord. We’re not responsible for the conversions.”

The evangelists’ passion for lost souls also motivated Gingras, who earlier had attended the NFL breakfast, to distribute some Christian literature in the French Quarter.

“I had no intention of handing out gospel tracts on Bourbon Street, but yet God decided that I would,” said Gingras, who used to party on Bourbon Street before he was a Christian. “I even got the opportunity to witness to a guy who might not have felt as comfortable talking to some of the other evangelists.”

Wade Caldwell, a 69-year-old Asheville, North Carolina, resident who witnessed in New Orleans for the first time, said he didn’t expect instant spiritual fruit from the excursions. “Only heaven will reveal the results of the gospel that was shared in this place,” he said.

Sharing Jesus one-on-one with strangers was the ultimate goal of the evangelists, who had to weather lots of rejection with patience and perseverance.

“This is tough going, but sometimes you find a hurting person–one who will talk to you,” said Engst, 39, a former Foursquare minister.

The Engsts had brief conversations with a few partyers, including Jason Harmon, who said he was a tight end with the Chicago Bears. “I’m Catholic, but I don’t believe in the Immaculate Conception,” Harmon told the couple, who tried to shift the discussion toward Christ and the Bible.

After about a minute, Harmon, who had a drink in his hand, politely accepted a magazine from Katie Engst, then walked away from the duo–seemingly not swayed by the evangelists. “People are going to believe what they want to believe,” Harmon told Charisma. “I don’t think they’re going to change the minds of people here.”

The Engsts also encountered other detractors, including Julie, who was offended by the message of their T-shirts and tracts. “It’s vulgar and totally unnecessary,” said the Mendota, Illinois, resident who claimed to be a Christian. “What [the evangelists] are doing isn’t about the coming of Jesus. I don’t see anything wrong with these people [partying on Bourbon Street].”

Another reveler lashed out at Engst after he offered him a tract. “Here’s something you’re going to need for tomorrow,” Engst told the young man. “I don’t need it for tomorrow,” he shot back. “I’ve got all I need tonight.”

Despite the harsh response, Katie Engst, 54, wasn’t discouraged. “Throughout the midst of all this, God is at work,” she said. “I know that God is going to speak to these people afterwards because God’s Word doesn’t return void.”

Knopps concurred, noting that the SBC outreaches presented the gospel more than 100,000 times, including distributing more than 20,000 pieces of Christian literature during Super Bowl week.

“During the Super Bowl in Miami three years ago, we estimated 3,000 first-time decisions for Christ,” Knopps said. “We got response cards from 15 different countries. We tried to connect them to a local church. So we believe this is a worthwhile ministry.”

Knopps cited a biblical example to support a Christian presence at America’s most hyped athletic event and the wild environment of Mardi Gras.

“The Feast of Passover was a party,” said the founder of the Timothy Institute of Evangelism. “They brought their goats so they could celebrate. They had all the trinkets and gadgets. I can look at the Scripture, and it says, ‘And Jesus went up to the festival.’

“So would Jesus be here? Absolutely.”

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Eric Tiansay, an associate editor with Charisma, traveled to New Orleans during Super Bowl week.

My friend Tedd Craven, an evangelist from Mississippi, recently invited me to join him during one of his monthly treks to reach the “Rainbow People.” Rainbows are bead-wearing, tie-dye-outfitted hippies who spend most of their time in forests. They have no phones, apartments, jobs or credit cards. They sleep in tents or cars, and they share whatever food they find with their Rainbow friends. They don’t bathe every day, and they have a taste for marijuana and New Age religion.

And, like everybody else, they need Jesus. But most Christians don’t even know the Rainbows exist. And we certainly don’t know how to help them.

Hoping that I might fit in with these vagabonds, I put on some ripped jeans and an old sweatshirt and joined Tedd at his campsite inside the Ocala National Forest in north central Florida. One of his bearded team members gave me a blue bandanna to wear on my head just so I wouldn’t look too much like a suburban guy who gets a regular paycheck.

After the sun went down we headed to the “Main Circle,” where the Rainbows gather nightly around a huge bonfire to listen to tribal drumming. Some people were dancing, others were trying to conjure up earth spirits, and a few were there just to get stoned or see a flash of nudity. But right there, amid the thick smell of body odor and burning sage, Tedd and I began to share the gospel with some precious young people who would never venture inside a church.

First was Ashé, a 22-year-old drifter who left home at 15 because she didn’t get along with her mom. She was eager to tell me about her vegetarianism. When I asked her what was happening in the drumming circle, she said she was hoping to connect with God. When she told us that her mother had been murdered two months before, Tedd and I prayed for her to know the security of Jesus’ love.

Next I struck up a conversation with Craig, also known as Laughing Man. Raised in Atlanta’s suburbs, he rejected materialism years ago and has been living in a van. Recently he spent five days in a cave in New Mexico, hoping for a deeper Buddhist experience. He bristled a bit when I told him that Jesus was the only way to find true peace.

Tedd and I then walked right into the drumming circle. “Lord,” I prayed, “reach into
this darkness and pull someone out.” At that point we met Jonathan, a 22-year-old Wisconsin kid who wanted to connect with fellow Rainbows. The Holy Spirit whispered to me that this young man had suffered a deep trauma as a young teen-ager. When I shared this, he welcomed prayer and held both of us closely as he wiped away some tears.

So it turns out that one of my favorite Christian experiences happened while I was standing around a bonfire with a bunch of hippies. Isn’t that the way it should be? Instead of living in isolation with sanctified folks, shouldn’t we go into the hedges and the highways of life–invading every dark place where people have fallen through the cracks?

I hear a voice that is coaxing us outside. So many Christians today are bored with their faith and weary of living within the four walls of sterile religion. Let’s follow Jesus. He’s headed into the woods to find somebody who’s lost.

Many non-Jews who profess Jesus as Messiah take an unpopular view that contradicts U.S. policy
In today’s post-Sept. 11 News environment, U.S. politicians are grappling with an age-old dilemma of how to promote peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Mediation efforts in the Middle East are not new endeavors, but they are running in a higher gear after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington killed thousands of Americans.

And as always, at the core of the peace negotiations is the central question: Just whose Holy Land is it, anyway?

Charisma surveyed several leaders in the Middle East, asking Messianic Jews, Arab Christians, and Palestinian and Egyptian Christians for their personal views on current events since Sept. 11 and what effect they have had on claims to the Holy Land. Their responses were wide and varied.

“The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem [ICEJ] recognizes that the United States of America is now facing the same sort of terror that Israel has been subjected to for years,” said Malcolm Hedding, executive director of the ICEJ. “The fundamentalist Islamic groups known as Hamas, Hizbullah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Islamic Jihad have all publicly and without apology stated that their goal is the total destruction of the Jewish state.

“These are not freedom fighters but terrorists, and in the end they will not hesitate to employ the most barbaric methods to achieve their goal,” Hedding told Charisma. “The attack on the World Trade Center in New York demonstrates this fully. Sadly, but not well-known, is the fact that the PLO has yet to remove the clauses that call for the total destruction of Israel from its charter.”

Hedding, a native of South Africa, is an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God of South Africa. After planting churches there for 27 years, he assumed his ICEJ post in 2001.

“Nowhere in the Quran does it mention a commitment to peace,” Hedding said. “The orthodox original form of Islam that swept out of the Arabian Peninsula in
the seventh century under Muhammad’s leadership was as violent as that which we see today.

“Christians in the United States should recognize that the Quran repeatedly calls for the murder and destruction of Jews and Christians and that while there may be moderate Muslims, Islam is not moderate or peace-loving.”

Ehab El Kharrat, an Egyptian Christian in Cairo, disagrees that God is on Israel’s side.

“Nobody has any right to kill civilians, even in occupied land,” El Kharrat told Charisma. “However, Israel does occupy a land that belongs to Palestinians. The United Nations and all U.S. administrations admit that the West Bank and Gaza belong to the Palestinians.

“You cannot call all Palestinian militant groups terrorists. The PLO has long denounced all violence against civilians, and they do refrain from such attacks.”

El Kharrat also noted that Israeli leaders such as Shimon Peres, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin admitted they had taken part in attacks on civilians before the declaration of independence in Israel in 1948. Current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s involvement in massacres of Palestinians and Arabs at Sabra and Shatilla during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon are well-documented.

El Kharrat, who is a full-time member of the senior leadership team at the 6,000-member Kasr El Dobara (Coptic Evangelical Church) in Cairo, holds a viewpoint common among many Christian Arabs, Palestinians and Egyptians in the Middle East that disputes the belief that God has ordained control of the Holy Land to modern-day Jews.

“The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, does not give any right to the Jews to occupy other peoples’ land,” he said. “From the biblical point of view, true Jews are all those who submit to God and receive His approval and praise. Those Jews who reject the Son of God are free to culturally call themselves Jews, but biblically they are not.”

Salim Munayer, a Palestinian Christian living in Jerusalem whose ministry, Musalaha, promotes reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians, told Charisma he is not opposed to Israel’s existence. He said the Arab world’s grievance against U.S. support for Israel is based on the West’s neglect and indifference to Palestinians’ lives, aspirations and rights.

“This by no means justifies bin Laden’s attacks, yet apart from him this is a legitimate issue that Palestinians have been questioning for years,” Munayer told Charisma. “I think Christians should support Israel when it is right. As a true friend, they should correct Israel’s policy when it is wrong. As true friends, we should be honest and truthful to biblical principles.”

Munayer says a major problem for Islamic countries is their inability to keep pace with an increasingly modernized world. This causes a climate of frustration in the poorer countries that enables militant Islam to flourish.

Instead of targeting countries for supporting terrorism, the United States should invoke a type of Marshall Plan–which helped Europe rebuild after World War II–to help nations reach modernity by “dealing with the gap between rich and poor, building freedom of religion and expression,” he said.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, there are 137,000 Christians living in Israel today, and the majority of them–some 115,000–are Arab. The majority of the Christian population resides in northern Israel.

Messianic Jews say U.S. support for Israel is not only the correct political choice, but also the correct biblical choice, said Amir Tsatfari, a Jew born in Jerusalem who uses his German- and English-language skills to serve as a tour guide in Israel.

Tsatfari cited Psalm 83 in explaining his view that Islam is seeking global expansion and the annihilation of the state of Israel. “America should understand that there are two things that drive Islam–destroying anything that belongs to the real God–the God of Israel–and anything that stands in their way to do so,” he told Charisma.

Asked about President Bush’s stance that Islam is a peaceful religion, Tsatfari said: “We should reach out to Muslims as lost people but not accept their religion as a peace-loving one.” America, he said, can only enjoy the blessing of God if it will support the seed of Abraham, which he said is Israel. He cited Genesis 12:2.

Baruch Maoz, an American-born Jewish Christian, pastors Grace and Truth Christian Congregation in Rishon LeTsion southeast of Tel Aviv.

Asked what America’s next target against terrorism should be, Maoz replied: “Its own national sin,” calling Christians in the United States to a new standard of holiness.
Billy Bruce