Observers say Christians in Iraq are hopeful but concerned in the wake of the nation’s first post-war election.

Though the Jan. 30 election largely was viewed as a success, the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) reported that 300,000 Christians in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq were unable to vote because voting boxes were not distributed to them.

In the United States, where Christians make up at least 80 percent of Iraqi expatriates, a limited number of polling places created travel challenges that may have deterred some from voting, said Nina Shea, director of Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom, an advocacy group for Iraqi Christians.

AINA founder Peter BetBasoo said because of their size, Iraqi Christians could have won as many as 10 seats had there been no voting irregularities. “Although Assyrians [who with the Catholic community of Chaldeans make up the Christian minority in Iraq] applaud the election, and have been staunch supporters of the U.S. policy in Iraq, they feel they have been deliberately locked out of the process,” AINA reported. “In their eyes this is not an auspicious beginning to Iraqi democracy but a continuation of 1,400 years of discrimination and marginalization of their community, not only in Iraq but now also in the West.”

Shiites won 140 of 275 seats in the Iraqi National Assembly, while the National Rafidain List, which represents the Christian minority, won one seat. Four Christians were elected on the Kurdish ticket, which won 75 seats.

Christians in Iraq, who make up roughly 3 percent of the population, were primarily concerned the new government would implement Shariah law, which would make them a permanent underclass. Because Kurds, also a minority, won enough seats to block the move, BetBasoo said it is unlikely the Muslim legal code will become law.

BetBasoo said Iraqi Christians believe their situation can only get better, adding that among Assyrians and Chaldeans, “there’s hope, but there’s also concern.”
Adrienne S. Gaines

Businessman-turned-preacher Bill Keller says mainstream television and the Internet are the best ways to reach the lost

Some 21st century evangelists are winning souls one click at a time.

They are the missionaries of the Internet, and they claim hundreds of thousands–even millions–of salvations, healings and answers to prayer from their online ministries.

LivePrayer.com is one of the most successful examples. It finished up its 64th month online at the end of 2004 with 100,000 reported decisions for Christ, a daily devotional subscriber list of roughly 2 million and more than 40,000 prayer requests sent in every day. A volunteer team of more than 700 retired pastors responds personally to each request.

“Three to four times a month I will share an invitation for salvation in my daily devotional, and we mail out a booklet to those who let us know they responded,” said Bill Keller, who runs LivePrayer.com. “As of the end of December, we sent out our 100,000th booklet.”

LivePrayer.com offers video clips of people praying for finances, health and relationships, plus a 24-hour live video feed that usually features someone sitting at a computer reading prayer requests and praying aloud over them. A former salesman who claims to have amassed and lost several fortunes before finding the Lord, Keller believes that mainstream television and the Internet are the ways to reach lost souls today.

The founder and president of Bill Keller Ministries based in St. Petersburg, Fla., gave his life to Christ at the age of 12 and said he always knew he would be a minister. But he began selling computers in the late 1970s and found that he had a knack for sales. By his own admission, greed took over, and by the late 1980s he was consumed in a fast lifestyle that included alcohol, drugs and lots of wheeling and dealing. By 1990, he was sitting in federal prison, convicted of insider trading.

There, he turned his life back over to Christ, received a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and became a traveling preacher upon his release in 1992. He then worked in Christian television but became frustrated when he began to feel he was merely “preaching to the choir.”

“The lost are not sitting in church on Sunday mornings or watching Christian television,” Keller said. “They are out there living their lives, so it was up to me to go outside of the Christian trough.”

Keller started LivePrayer.com and two years ago launched a live call-in TV show, Live Prayer With Bill Keller, which airs from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Friday on the UPN station in the Tampa Bay area.

Keller is not the only one using new millennium media to reach the masses. Presbyterian minister Charles Henderson launched The First Church of Cyberspace in 1994. The site says the outreach is “an attempt to bring Christianity online with thoughtfulness, humor and a willingness to address the more controversial questions that tend to be avoided in the traditional church.”

The cyberspace church is just one of many that offer sermons, articles, devotionals, live forums and links to other resources. Few sites reach non-Christians the way LivePrayer.com does, but efforts are under way to change that.

The Internet Evangelism Coalition, a consortium of several outreach ministries, has designated April 24 as Internet Evangelism (IE) Day. An affiliated Web site, www.InternetEvangelismDay.com, will offer a five-minute video testimony from a student who found God online, short drama scripts, PowerPoint presentations, discussion questions and a variety of links.

The organizing team hopes IE Day will inspire churches to use their Web pages for more than just making announcements to their members. A 2001 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that roughly 25 percent of adult Internet users–around 28 million people–had gone online to get religious and spiritual material.

“It’s an exciting challenge,” said IE Day coordinator Tony Whittaker. “The potential of the Web is enormous.”

In addition to the IE Day efforts, a conference dealing with Internet evangelism for the 21st century also is scheduled this month at Liberty University.

The race to save souls can mask a desire to bring in the cash. Some sites prey on seekers by renting out their subscriber lists, placing ad banners all over the place and soliciting heavily for donations.

Keller insists that his goal is to reach the unsaved, not make a buck. He said LivePrayer, which takes $70,000 a month to stay online and on the air, is supported by anonymous ministry partners who give large monetary gifts. Some visitors also send in donations.

Keller knows it will take money to reach the millions of people who don’t know Christ. “But I have to stand before God one day and give an accounting, so [exploiting subscribers] just isn’t worth it.”
Natalie Nichols Gillespie

Rioters burned images of Hinn and threw rocks at those attending his Festival of Blessings in the city of Bangalore

More than 7 million people attended evangelist Benny Hinn’s recent Festival of Blessings in Bangalore, India, despite unprecedented rioting that led to at least 30 injuries.

Angered by allegations that Hinn was coming to convert Hindus, members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called for his visa to be revoked, and dissidents threw rocks at vehicles transporting nationals to the event. Others burned images of Hinn in effigy, demanding that the California-based minister “go back, go back, go back.”

Indian news media reported that 300 buses were damaged during the meeting Jan. 21-23, which was attended and supported by local officials, including Chief Minister N. Dharnam Singh. “The programme has neither any impact on Hindus nor [has] it led to conversion of people into Christianity,” Singh said, India’s Central Chronicle reported. “BJP is obsessed with making an issue out of every religious issue.”

Though no one on Hinn’s team was harmed, Jon Wilson, vice president of events for Benny Hinn Ministries, said roughly 25 attendees visited the ministry’s first aid center, with one little girl suffering a massive bump on her head after being hit by a rock.

“I never thought I would face such a thing,” Hinn told Charisma. “It was frightening. People started to throw rocks, slash tires, burn cars. I think the scariest part was seeing me burned in effigy. Beating a dummy with sticks. I thought, My God. I thought I would be killed.”

Indian media carried reports of the protests for days before the event, which was Hinn’s second crusade in the nation. The first, held last year in Mumbai, drew what was then his largest crowd–some 4.8 million attendees.

The Bangalore event is Hinn’s largest to date, and he said the news reports might have contributed to the record-setting crowd. Hinn said thousands of attendees reported miracles.

“I felt no struggle on the platform,” Hinn said. “A lot of deaf and mute were healed. A lot of cripples. One young man jumped over a rail and hadn’t walked in 20 years.”

However, one man in the crowd died, and Hinn was blamed for his death. Police later said the cause of the man’s death was unknown and that Hinn was not responsible, news reports said.

Anti-Christian forces in India have fiercely opposed evangelism efforts there for years, said Joseph D’Souza, president of the All India Christian Council. But he fears the crusade may have reawakened opposition that had begun to calm since the nation’s recent election and the passing of an anti-conversion law.

“For those of us who have been involved in fighting for religious freedom this was a very complicated situation,” D’Souza said.

Though he believes Hinn should have been given the freedom to hold the crusade, he attributes some of the violence to the publicity that preceded the event. He said the advertisements were perceived as targeting Hindus for conversion and drew attention to the vast scale of the event–a clear sign of foreign funding.

“We have just come out of a difficult seven years of head-on persecution by the BJP-led forces,” he said. “Due to the election results they are quiet now, but we must not give them ammunition to attack Christians. This crusade definitely gave them much ammunition. … We must not lose the credibility Christians gained through the times of persecution.

“The fact of the matter is that God is doing a wonderful work across the land through locals and nationals, and this wonderful work is not drawing attention of those who are the enemies of the gospel,” D’Souza added. “The crowds that attend these crusades are representative of what God is doing on the ground.”

Because of India’s anti-conversion law, Hinn was not permitted to give an altar call, but he led the crowd in the sinner’s prayer en masse. No one knows how many people made professions of faith, Hinn said, but he noted that after last year’s India crusade 300 churches were planted to disciple new converts.

“The Lord knows how to get those people to the church because we’re not allowed by law to do it,” Hinn said. “The great thing is, I’m allowed on television to say anything I want. So when I get back I encourage [those who attended the crusade] to find a church.”

This month, Hinn is scheduled to host a healing crusade in Nigeria, where his team is anticipating the ministry’s largest crowd ever, with 6 million to 8 million people expected each night.
Adrienne S. Gaines

In Indonesia, the world’s largest Islamic country, pastor Petrus Agung has built a church the size of a stadium
It’s not exactly common to see a church the size of a stadium in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation. But Jemaat Kristen Indonesia (JKI), translated Gospel of the Kingdom Church, isn’t afraid to take risks.

Despite a traditional law that forbids any group from building a facility larger than the city’s grand mosque, the congregation, located in Semarang, the capital city of Central Java, is building a 12,000-seat arena dubbed the “Holy Stadium,” which was to open this spring.

Though the largest mosque in Semarang seats 3,000, JKI–which has grown from 25 people to 6,000 since 1991 and now operates an FM radio station, the city’s only nonsmoking café, a medical ministry and a drug-treatment center–received a permit for construction of its stadium in record time.

Pastor Petrus Agung, who leads the ministry with his wife, Tina, chalks it all up to the favor of God. Saved at the age of 17, Agung said he was called to pastor in 1990 when God spoke to him three times. “The first time I thought it was the devil,” he told Charisma. “When the voice said, ‘Start a church in the city,’ I laughed. I said: ‘Devil, you are a liar. I am an evangelist. I have no calling to be a pastor. It will be a disaster.'”

But the voice persisted. “Before I rebuked that voice the third time, the Lord said, ‘It’s Me.’ I cried and said, ‘Forgive me, Lord.’ And He said, ‘Start a church.'”

Agung obeyed, launching JKI in February 1991 with his wife, a handful of musicians and some friends. In seven years, Agung said, the church grew to 400 members, which he said is small by Indonesian standards. “There are millions of people around us, so that’s very slow,” he told Charisma.

The church’s growth rate began to change after Agung began speaking in public- and private-school assemblies. At one school, he said, the principal brought all the students into the auditorium and told the pastor he could speak freely with the students for two hours.

At first the youth were not responsive. “I was so frustrated,” he said. “But the Lord said: ‘Don’t worry. Keep talking.’ After 15 minutes, He said stop. … So I stopped, and I thought it was my worst preaching, but I said: ‘If you want to receive Jesus … if you want to change your life, come. I will pray for you.’

“They ran, and I began to pray for them. They began to weep and cry. … It was always like that … and not only in the Christian schools.”

The church grew to 700 within two months, then Kong Hee, pastor of 16,000-member City Harvest Church in Singapore, came to preach a revival meeting and challenged Agung to believe that God would grow the ministry to 2,000 people by the end of 2000.

“I said in my heart, ‘I don’t know,'” Agung said. “But I tried to be polite with him, so … I said, ‘2,000 is fine.'”

Then at the revival meeting that night, Kong Hee surprised his friend even more. “He said something powerful: ‘Let’s say 2,000 before 2000. So by the end of 1999 you are going to reach 2,000,'”Agung recalled. “I was so afraid when he declared that.”

But before Christmas 1999, JKI had more than 2,000 members, with hundreds getting saved that year. Agung says since then the church has held a baptism service almost every month.

Though the congregation, whose average age is 21, earns less than $300 a month, they have sacrificially given jewelry, bikes, homes and land to build the new facility. Agung and his wife gave their car, money and all her heirloom jewelry, including her wedding rings, to the project. But the couple is convinced they can’t out-give God.

Today, the ministry is debt-free, and the Holy Stadium is more than 80 percent paid for even though construction is not complete. In the wake of the tsunami that devastated parts of South Asia, the church has become a center for distributing relief and supplies.

Agung said obedience to God is at the heart of the church’s growth. “We have to hear what He says and just obey it,” he said. “Do it, whatever He says.”
Larry Keefauver in Semarang, Indonesia

A variety of ministries hosted pre-inauguration events aimed at praying for the president and the nation’s future

Thousands of Christians from across the nation came to Washington, D.C., in January to celebrate the re-election of George W. Bush and to participate in several inaugural events sponsored by area Christian organizations.

The Fourth Inaugural Prayer Breakfast, held Jan. 20 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, drew more than 1,000 participants, who came to pray for the president and the nation before the swearing-in ceremony at noon.

The event’s organizers, Stephen and Carol Poulos of Ask for America, called on guests to renew their commitment to pray for the United States and its leaders, not just on Inauguration Day, but every day. “God has given us a mandate to pray,” Carol Poulos said. “We want our voices to be heard not only in this room, but across this nation.”

Government and military officials joined prominent Christian leaders in prayer during the four-hour, bipartisan and nondenominational gathering. Participants interceded for the president, the three branches of government, the nation’s capital, the armed forces, the media and a national revival. Prayer leaders included Col. Ralph Benson, chaplain of the Pentagon; Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell; Ohio pastor Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church in Columbus; Matt Crouch, president of Gener8Xion Entertainment; Lou Engle, founder of The Cause and former leader of The Call prayer events; and Stephen Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine.

Strang was featured in the Feb. 7 issue of Time magazine as one of the nation’s 25 most influential evangelical leaders alongside author Rick Warren, evangelist Joyce Meyer, Dallas pastor T.D. Jakes and National Association of Evangelicals President Ted Haggard.

Vicki Yohe and Lindell Cooley, former worship leader at Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Fla., and now senior pastor of Grace Church in Nashville, Tenn., led worship during the event.

Attendee Martha Fisher of Oneness in Christ Ministries said the prayer breakfast gave her an expectation that “God is establishing His presence globally in a way not seen before.”

“God wants to bless America so that we in turn can bless others,” Stephen Poulos told participants. “At this very moment, the [United States] is coming alongside the many nations surrounding the Indian Ocean that were ravaged by the tsunami. Without the blessing of God, the kind of compassion that our Lord and Savior Jesus wants to bestow would be impossible.”

A second inaugural day prayer initiative, sponsored by Faith and Action Ministries, was held at the Honorable William J. Ostrowski House in Washington. Approximately 100 people, many of whom were pastors representing more than 30 denominations, gathered to pray for President Bush and the future of the United States.

“The focus of our prayers [was] to thank God for Bush’s re-election and for the principles he espouses,” said the Rev. Rob Schenck, who heads up the Capitol Hill ministry.

Schenck said he believes Bush’s moral legacy will have a lasting impact on the United States through his appointments to the federal bench. “We must pray that he will make the right choices,” Schenck said. “The inauguration is about the next four years; Bush’s federal court appointments are about the next 40.”

The Christian Inaugural Eve Gala, a black-tie reception and dinner held at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in downtown Washington, drew 850 guests, including such leaders as outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft, senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, Republican Sen. Dan Thume of South Dakota, and newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

The event was sponsored by the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) in cooperation with Strang Communications and other Christian ministries. TVC founder Lou Sheldon said the “thrust of the evening was to celebrate the providential hand of God upon America.”

In his keynote address, Ashcroft encouraged attendees to keep interceding for the president, noting that Bush’s faith and the nation’s prayers had helped him make strong decisions.
Sandra K. Chambers in Washington, D.C.

Nigerian Students Face Death Threats

Muslim militants pronounced a death sentence on five Christian students expelled from colleges in November for conducting an evangelistic outreach. The families of two of the students, Hanatu Haruna Alkali and Abraham Adamu Misal, were attacked on Jan. 26, when militants went to their homes in the northern state of Gombe, Compass Direct reported. Alkali and Misal escaped harm but are now in hiding. The location of the other three students is unknown. Alkali’s sister said the militants attacked their house, and family members fear for their lives.

Pakistani Christian Acquitted of Blasphemy

Judicial Magistrate Dr. Mohammed Anwar Gondal ruled Dec. 17 that blasphemy charges against Anwer Masih were based only on hearsay, and he nullified the police report filed against him because it violated the criminal procedure code, Compass Direct reported. The ruling made Masih the first Pakistani Christian ever to be acquitted of blasphemy charges in lower court. Masih, now 32, was arrested in November 2003 after a neighbor who had converted from Christianity to Islam claimed Masih mocked his new beard and derided Islamic beliefs. Masih remains in hiding and has been unable to reunite with his wife and children because of death threats against him. Compass said Masih likely will have to apply for asylum abroad and assume a new identity.

Colombian Seminary Student Released

Luis Alberto Vera was released in January from jail in Medellín, Colombia, but the seminary student still faces an uphill battle to clear his name, Compass Direct reported. A member of a Foursquare church in Bucaramanga, Vera was arrested Nov. 26 for allegedly mugging a man in 2002. Vera’s arrest came after a routine police check matched his I.D. number with an arrest warrant. Vera has amassed $2,110 in legal bills fighting what Compass said was the result of sloppy police work and an overloaded justice system. “I’m not sure I will be able to continue my studies,” said Vera, who left his hometown last year with his wife and son to attend the Biblical Seminary of Colombia.

‘Pastor Freak’ of Come As You Are Church says his Bible-themed body art has helped him share the gospel
A Michigan minister is using his 150 hours’ worth of body art to make a statement of faith.

Known as “Pastor Freak,” Steve Bensinger, 44-year-old senior pastor of Come As You Are Church (CAYAC) in Kalamazoo, Mich., says the tattoos–which all have biblical themes–have helped him reach more than 2,000 people with the gospel since 1997 when he founded CAYAC. He also believes they have helped make Christianity more accessible to nonbelievers.

“We accept people for who they are and get to know them,” said Bensinger, who pastors the church with his wife of 22 years, Betty. “Telling and showing them a positive side of who God is based on the Word of God. Then when we say we love them, we really mean it.”

At 6 feet, 1 inch and 290 pounds, Bensinger is formidable even without his Mohawk, facial piercings and tattoos, which he sports on his arms, back, neck, feet and legs. “By my mere appearance people look at me and want to call me a freak,” he told Charisma. “I took their power away and began calling myself freak.”

But Pastor Freak also calls himself an evangelist. On his forearm is an image of Jesus on the cross along with John 3:16, and on his leg is a graveyard scene with Bible verses on the tombstones. Each of the tattoos could have cost Bensinger $100 to $200 an hour, but the pastor gets deep discounts.

“Every day people ask me about or comment on my tattoos in admiration or wonder,” he said. “That gives me the opportunity to talk about my tattoos, which are all biblical and talk about Jesus, His love, grace and power.

“Most people have an entirely wrong concept of who God is. They look at Him as a big ogre, waiting to judge them and send them to hell. We are trying to go around and show a positive image of Jesus, His love, grace and transforming power.”

Tony Bender, large enough to be a bodyguard, is an insurance adjuster who joined CAYAC a few years ago. He says he felt called to pastor, but his former church believed having tattoos was sinful, and Bender has several.

At CAYAC, Bender says he is learning how to use his comic-style tattoos to draw young people into conversations about Jesus. And he says Bensinger is teaching him how to walk in his calling. “I’ve never walked into a place where I was more loved and welcomed, and I have been a lot of places,” Bender said of CAYAC.

Bender says being a Christian is about more than spending an hour and a half in a pew, but about going where the people are. Members of CAYAC reach out to seniors in their community, provide toys for children, assist a local motorcycle ministry and share the gospel at the local mall. “[Store employees] look for us to come and talk to them, listen and take prayer requests,” said church member Laura “Wheezy” Owens.

“We are the church, doing what God told us to do,” Bensinger added.

For the last 2-1/2 years, Bensinger has been president of the Christian Tattoo Association (CTA), an international ministry for tattoo professionals and enthusiasts founded in 1990. Today, CTA lists more than 100 affiliated shops, with members and branches as far away as the United Kingdom and Australia.

Critics of tattooing often cite Leviticus 19:28, which prohibits tattoos. But Bensinger believes the ban against tattooing is no different from the prohibitions against trimming one’s beard or mixing fabrics that are also listed in that chapter.

“When Jesus said it is finished on the cross that meant we now live under grace, not the law,” Bensinger said, noting that Revelation 19:16 says, “And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

“It’s not about rules but relationship,” Bensinger said. “No one is made right with God under the law. We are not harming our bodies or anyone else. The body of Christ should be known for our love. Because of our love for each other we can do what Christ commanded.”

Bensinger believes he is impacting those whom the church might otherwise not reach, such as 19-year-old Jenn McGuiness. “I walked in the doors a Roman Catholic, but I walked out a saved Christian,” she said.

McGuiness worked as a nude dancer before a friend told her about Bensinger’s ministry. “Pastor Freak knew nothing about me, but preached that you don’t have to make a living dancing at DeJaVu [the local adult club where she worked] but that God would provide all my needs,” McGuiness recalled. “I gave my life to the Lord that night and have been coming ever since.”
LaVenia Jean LaVelle in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Bill Winston hopes his business school will help close the economic gap between minorities and the general population
If you ask pastor William S. Winston his age, expect to hear this: “My real birthday”–the day he became a Christian–“is Sept. 22, 1980.” If you persist, he will say he’s at least 50 years old.

There are other numbers, however, that Winston is more willing to reveal. When he moved his congregation from a downtown storefront to the Chicago suburb of Forest Park, Ill., between 12 and 15 people followed.

Now, 16 years later, Living Word Christian Center claims a membership of 14,000. The congregation paid $4 million for the three-theater cineplex behind a mall to house their church, and today Winston estimates the renovated building is worth 10 times as much.

“I am an example that real wealth is not in dollars; it’s in your own insight, your own ability to see opportunities and take advantage of them,” Winston said.

That’s the vision Winston hopes to cast into the students at his Joseph Center School of Business and Entrepreneurship, where his dream of training a workforce of Christian entrepreneurs is coming to life. More than 130 men and women have graduated from the nine-month business program based on biblical principles.

“If everybody develops their unique ability, that unique ability would make room for them in this universe of opportunities and bring them into substantial income,” Winston said.

African-Americans make up roughly 13 percent of the U.S. population but only 3.5 percent of the leadership of firms, and they generate less than 3 percent of the income firms produce, said Eric Dobyne, regional director of the Minority Business Development Agency, a division of the Department of Commerce.

“If you look at that number and think about … the amount [African-Americans] would be able to contribute to the overall economy if they were just at entrepreneurial parity–meaning the point at which the percentage of the population is equivalent to the percentage of firms–you’re talking about a significant impact on the American economy,” Dobyne said.

He said The Joseph Center could help shrink that gap. “In order for us to progress I think it’s going to be important that we have partnerships between the public sector, being the government, the private sector, being corporations, and the faith-based organizations,” he said. “So anytime I see an entrepreneurial center open, I think it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

India native Rajan Oommen said The Joseph Center helped point him in the right direction. He grew up in an entrepreneurial family and ran his own deep sea fishing business but believed he needed more training. He considered getting an MBA, but when he saw The Joseph Center’s graduation ceremony, he took it as a sign that he should attend.

Now, almost four years after graduating from The Joseph Center, Oommen has his own mortgage business and says he earns a six-figure income. “I need to make far more money than this,” he said. “I have been told by God specifically to do things in [million-dollar] amounts, [such as helping to build Bible schools and churches]. The six-figure dollar amount will not … suffice to do those things.”

Born in Tuskegee, Ala., Winston says he grew up in a community of entrepreneurial-minded African-Americans. He joined the Air Force, then later got a job at IBM, working in sales on commission.

But Winston sensed a call to ministry. He attended Oral Roberts University for a year before moving to Chicago in 1988 and founding Living Word. He said one verse has driven him through the years: Isaiah 48:17, “‘I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go'” (NKJV).

“I was born for this part of His vision to be manifested on the earth,” Winston said. “There’s a reason Moses was born. There’s a reason Abraham was born.”

Shevelle L. Freeman, a 41-year-old psychologist, is currently enrolled at The Joseph Center. For five years, she has clung to a vision of opening Revelations Counseling Center in Detroit, Atlanta and her hometown of Chicago.

She was confident in her ability as a counselor but didn’t believe she had the skills to run her own business. When she heard about The Joseph Center, she said she knew she needed to “run for it.”

But becoming an entrepreneur isn’t about making a lot of money, she said. “It’s about kingdom business. All that I do is to the glory of God. For me, this is using my gifts, helping this world and lifting up God in the process.”
Abigail Reese in Chicago

Susie Jennings spearheads Operation Care, which has helped rally her community to reach out to an often forgotten group
Susie Jennings, a pint-size nurse, born and river-baptized as a child in the Philippines, is uniting faith-based, social and health-care services with corporate giants to open arms, hearts and pocketbooks for one of America’s often forgotten groups: the homeless.

What began as Jennings’ blanket drive for the homeless a decade ago has blossomed into Operation Care www.operationcare dallas.org, a nonprofit organization in Dallas that is backed by a board of directors composed of major players from such groups as Verizon, the IBM Corporation and SBC Communications.

Several times a year now, Jennings said, Operation Care brings the city’s homeless from the concrete shadows to celebrate holidays, and be fed, clothed and when possible reunited with families through a visit or a phone call near Easter and Valentine’s Day, in summer and fall, and at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

At least once a month, she said, her Operation Care volunteers hit the streets to witness to the homeless, take them comfort items, food and bottled water labeled with emergency and shelter numbers and the words, “Jesus Is the Living Water.”

Always friendly, smiling and nodding, Jennings has a vision that looms much larger than her 5-foot frame. Her energy seldom wanes, and those around her instinctively know they must move with her or respectfully move out of the way.

Operation Care is not unlike other homeless ministries, which often begin with one person’s calling and become established operations that enrich communities and lives in limitless ways, according to Steve Burger, executive director of the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions based in Kansas City. “There’s always the apparent need and that committed person that becomes totally enmeshed in the issue,” he said. “Personalities and past experiences can play in–and the Holy Spirit.”

Jennings said the Operation Care outreach stems from the loss of her husband in April 1993. “He had been suffering long-term emotional illness aggravated by a chemical imbalance in his brain,” she said. “He had a bad reaction to some medication; during that time he lost a close friend, lost his job, and his psychiatrist moved away. … Then he disappeared and became a missing person.

“We found his body in Oklahoma. He had committed suicide–homeless and alone. We buried him the day before Easter. … Reuniting families is an important aspect of this ministry.”

That spring, as full-time nurse supervisor for Baylor University Medical Center, the young widow was already teaching a preschool Sunday school class at her church in downtown Dallas.

“Then the Lord grabbed hold of me,” Jennings said. “I remember driving home from the church one day and turning my head to look away when I passed the Canton Street Bridge downtown. Under the bridge, more than 100 homeless men and women peered out from the cardboard boxes that served as their homes.

“But God called me not just to look at them, but to go under the bridge in person and help them. … At first, I said, ‘Oh, no, God, not me! … Why me?’ I had always despised homeless people. I couldn’t stand the way they smelled. … They don’t smell bad to me anymore.”

According to Ray Bailey, executive director and 25-year veteran of homeless outreach with the 50-year-old Dallas Life Foundation, Operation Care’s Christmas Gift gathering at the Dallas Convention Center was the largest homeless outreach event in the city’s history.

Several thousand volunteers pitched in from the mega Prestonwood Baptist Church, The Potter’s House and more than 121 area churches. An estimated 8,000 homeless and needy individuals filed in for food, personal care items, tents, blankets, medical exams, vision care, foot washing and podiatry care, makeovers, haircuts, manicures, individual and family portraits, legal advice, prayer, and spiritual and emotional counseling.

Jennings admits that she seems to meet herself coming and going these days with the demands of her job, ministry and caring for her 88-year-old mother, but she’s not discouraged. Instead, she said, she’s listening to hear if God is calling her to give up her lifetime nursing vocation.

“If God called me, I’d leave it tomorrow to help the homeless in Dallas and across the country for Him.”
Marcia J. Davis in Dallas

Bob Heath says his Kids for Christ ministry has seen thousands of children come to Christ; many have led others to salvation
An Oklahoma evangelist is training young missionaries in one of the nation’s most unlikely places: public schools.

Bob Heath, founder and director of Kids for Christ USA said his organization has seen more than 6,000 children accept Christ since it began launching Bible clubs in Tulsa public elementary and middle schools in January 2001. In turn, he said, the children have used the tools they learned during the weekly meetings to lead 2,500 of their friends and family members to salvation.

“I … simply wanted to empower people–children and their parents and leaders–to start Bible clubs in their schools,” Heath told Charisma.

Based in Broken Arrow, in suburban Tulsa, Kids for Christ (KFC) began informally about seven years ago when a parents group invited Heath to be the guest speaker at a Bible club at a Tulsa elementary school. Then children’s minister at Calvary Church of the Nazarene, Heath had gained recognition locally for his evangelistic festivals for children.

He said the students were crammed on the floor of the small meeting room. “I taught them that Jesus was like chocolate; the more you get the more it takes to satisfy you,” Heath said. “It blew me away when 20 of those kids responded to an invitation to give their lives to Christ.”

That experience stayed with him for the next several years. Yet despite “constant nagging” by one of the moms to organize similar Bible clubs around Tulsa, he kept the idea on the back burner. Then in 2001, while participating in Dad’s Day with his son’s kindergarten class, Heath noticed one of the men giving out gospel tracts. At first Heath thought the man was a loose cannon, but then he “had one of those ‘open your mouth and let God fill it’ moments,” he said.

When the man asked Heath if he was a Christian, he said: “‘Yes. In fact, I am a minister. As a matter of fact, if I started a Bible club here would you help me?'”

Heath said he then realized God had set him up. Heath later launched KFC at the elementary school his sons attended.

According to the Family Research Council, the 1984 Equal Access Act (EAA) requires schools to grant religious student groups the same rights and privileges as nonreligious student groups. Though some Christian organizations have been challenged for hosting Bible clubs in public schools, Heath said he hasn’t received any significant opposition. He said he spoke with a representative of the American Center for Law and Justice in the developmental stages of KFC to make sure he was on solid legal ground.

Now children’s director for fourth- through sixth-graders at Believers Church of Tulsa, Heath describes the weekly KFC meetings as “Nickelodeon-style, high-energy, virtue-driven, simple gospel.” They kick off with praise songs, a game and a Bible story with a very practical application. After more worship and prayer, the children are invited to accept Christ.

Instead of praying the traditional “sinner’s prayer,” the youngsters meet Christ through the “Ticket to Heaven Prayer,” which Heath said gives the children an easy way to lead others to Christ. The prayer comprises eight simple phrases: “I thank You, Jesus. You died for me. Rose again for me. Forgive all my sins. Come into my heart. Make me the champion You want me to be. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Genevieve Delaune, parent-sponsor of a KFC club at Andersen Elementary in Broken Arrow, said her three children struggle getting up every day except Wednesdays. “All I have to do is say: ‘OK, kids. It’s KFC day,’ and they jump out of bed,” she said.

In its 2004 year-end survey, KFC reported that of the 238 children who responded, 56 percent had led someone to Christ using the Ticket to Heaven prayer. During KFC’s 2004 “Operation Treat-or-Treat” outreach event, students from three Tulsa schools chose to hand out Ticket to Heaven tracts to the adults who answered the doors on Halloween. As a result, 22 adults accepted Christ.

With 25 clubs in the Tulsa area, KFC receives requests from groups nationwide who are interested in beginning Bible clubs in their local schools. Though Heath has said his goal is to “have a thriving Bible club in every school in the nation,” he believes Jesus is already in most public schools. “If there is one child in a school that has given his or her life to Jesus,” Heath said, “then Jesus is in that school.”
Carol McClain Bassett