Through her Smile of a Child foundation, the TBN co-founder is helping the world’s children
Jan Crouch is no stranger to the limelight. But on a warm day in January, the co-founder of the world’s largest Christian TV network worried that media attention would spoil the work she says God has called her to do.

“I’ve been doing it for 20 years, and I would do it as long as I lived if nobody knew about it but the children,” said Crouch, who leads the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) with her husband, Paul. Keeping it out of public view “kind of kept it precious in my heart,” she said. “It’s a personal thing the Lord just keeps blessing me to do.”

That “personal thing” is the humanitarian work she funds through her nonprofit foundation, Smile of a Child (SOAC). She gives out toys and dolls stamped with the message “Jesus loves you and He has a place in heaven for you,” as well as supplies to needy children around the world. In Costa Rica she’s building a medical facility, and in Port au Prince, Haiti, where her private plane landed for a day in January, she’s funding a hospital.

Built in cooperation with Bishop Joel R. Jeune of Grace International Inc., the $2 million project will be the most sophisticated medical facility in the nation. And despite Crouch’s efforts to remain low-key during her Jan. 27 visit, her generosity, like her signature pink hair, hardly went unnoticed.

For most of the day she was escorted by Alix Baptiste, secretary of state of Haitians living abroad. Later she met with Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue to present him with the keys to six fire trucks and three ambulances, more gifts to Haiti “from Jesus and the Christians of America,” she said.

“Let me officially thank you and the Christians of America,” Latortue said during a private meeting with Crouch and several other American Christians.

He told Crouch of his nation’s need for fire trucks last summer, and their conversation was broadcast on TBN’s Behind the Scenes in late August. “I realized I was dealing with pure Christians,” he said of the meeting. “I had no doubt one day you would be here to help the people of Haiti.”

Crouch’s work in Haiti began more than 20 years ago. When a local minister took her to a hospital for abandoned children, she saw children lying on cardboard beds, covered in newspaper, so thin “they looked like skin wrapped around a bone skeleton,” she said.

“I just kept saying: ‘Jesus, that could be me. That could be me.'”

The memory of one child still haunts her. “As I was holding him, all I could say was, ‘Jesus loves you.’ And as I was holding him, he just quit breathing and died in my arms. I said, ‘One day children won’t have to die on cement floors.'”

When the 60,000-square-foot hospital is completed this summer, it will house at least 85 beds and two operating rooms–unlike any other on the island. Crouch said the project has evolved organically, as a result of a handful of low-key requests.

Joseph Montopoli, assistant fire chief for the City of Pembroke Pines Fire Rescue in South Florida, was watching TBN one night when he saw Latortue telling Crouch that his nation needed ambulances and fire trucks.

Montopoli quickly went to work, getting his station to donate two vehicles. He then located a vendor who sold decommissioned trucks. SOAC purchased six fire trucks for roughly $35,000. One is valued at $24,000.

“As a Christian man, your heart definitely goes out to them,” said Montopoli, who will also help Haiti develop its fire department and teach rescue workers how to operate the vehicles. “Whatever I can do to help out.”

Ministers working in Haiti see the construction of the hospital and the donation of the trucks as one small sign that God is turning things around in a nation long plagued by violence, poverty and government corruption. Since the ouster of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, local ministers say the nation has seen more calm and the beginnings of needed improvements, such as road construction and sanitation work.

“The church here in Haiti is very strong,” said Luke Weaver of Florida-based Gospel Crusade, which has partnered with Jeune to oversee 260 churches in Haiti.

Weaver, who has visited Jeune’s ministry annually for 30 years, said adherence to Voodoo has decreased since 1997. That year Jeune led a team of 150 pastors in confronting a demonic spirit they believed to be behind Haiti’s involvement with Voodoo, which under Aristide had been declared the national religion.

“Haiti is in the midst of a big blessing because so many Christians have been praying for Haiti,” Weaver said. “With a stable government, other nations will pour resources into Haiti. I believe God is going to cause Haiti to become the pearl of the Caribbean; I believe it will turn into a tourist attraction.”

Other observers agree that the elections in October and November will signal a turning point. “It’s time for this nation to have God at the center of this country,” said Dr. Luc Mesadieu, a dentist and pastor who is running for president. “Forty-six percent of the nation is Christian. We have the power to take this nation for the Lord. When the right people lead a country, we have blessing.”

Mesadieu said his house and car were burned during Aristide’s regime, and his bodyguard was burned alive because he opposed the former president’s policies. Though he says Haiti is safer now that Aristide is gone, he still faces threats. “We are ready with God’s help,” Mesadieu said. “We are for progress and development. We are for a Christian movement for a new Haiti.”

Changing a nation isn’t exactly what the “little girl with the pink hair,” as Crouch called herself, expected to do when she met Jeune 20 years ago. She simply wanted to help him feed hungry children, provide them with a school and later develop a clinic.

But she said surviving colon cancer last year convinced her that God had a big work for her to do. Founded just six years ago, Smile of a Child uses all the donations that come in to fund ministry work, Crouch said, adding that none of the money is spent on administrative costs.

Now she has her sights set on building a similar hospital in Kenya with help from her friend Makena Marangu, a Kenya-born plastic surgeon. Her experience in Haiti is challenging her to think big.

“I am just one of 2.5 billion Christians,” Crouch told Charisma. “If everyone would undertake something that only you and God could do … can you imagine what would happen?”
Adrienne S. Gaines in Port au Prince, Haiti

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.

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 . “As of the end of December, we sent out our 100,000th booklet.”

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 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 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, , 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

Charles Blair said one of the nation’s presidents has pledged to donate a piece of land to build a church for every 25 converts
Charles Blair is no mathematician, but he is a fan of numbers. The former pastor of Calvary Temple in Denver has a particular favorite: 1,850. That’s how much he says it costs in dollars to support an Ethiopian missionary for a year, build a church and furnish the congregation with Bibles and discipleship materials.

Another favorite is 25. That’s the number of converts needed in order for the government to donate a patch of land for a church building.

Those figures form the crux of a fund-raising effort Blair launched nearly two years ago. Dubbed The Ethiopian Call, the campaign’s goal is to raise enough money to plant 1,000 churches in Benishangul-Gumuz, which has a population of 600,000 and is located in western Ethiopia near the Sudan border. So far, Blair says, enough money has been raised to sponsor 649 churches.

Blair said he hopes North American Christians will support the Ethopian church ” and trigger a ripple effect that will be felt throughout all Ethiopia. We believe God’s going to give us the nation.”

Blair spent more than 50 years as founding pastor of Calvary Temple before he retired in 1998. In the 1970s, he found himself the subject of newspaper headlines after he unwittingly sold unsecured securities in an effort to raise funds for a retirement center. He was fined and put on probation, and the church went on to repay the investors.

Now, despite retirement, Blair said he doesn’t want to miss what he calls an “unprecedented” opportunity to help fulfill the Great Commission. Blair has been working in Ethiopia since the early 1990s, when communism fell in the east African nation. At the invitation of the Evangelical Churches Fellowship of Ethiopia, a consortium of more than 20 denominations, Blair began training promising young leaders to evangelize their nation and plant churches in remote villages. Blair’s organization reports that some 60,000 Ethiopians have converted to Christianity through their efforts.

Blair said the spiritual and social transformation is apparent. Roughly two years ago Yaregal Aysheshim, president of Benishangul-Gumuz, contacted Blair. A Christian, Aysheshim said he noticed a marked difference in the villages in his region: crime was down, the AIDS infection rate had dropped and alcoholism had decreased, Blair recalled.

“He said he’d be in office for 2-1/2 more years, and he wanted to establish 1,000 churches within that time,” Blair said. “He was willing to donate a piece of land for every 25 converts. … We felt it was an open door, one that could close.”

Since then, Blair has met quietly with Christian leaders, telling them the story of how he met an African president willing to donate land for building churches. Thousands of dollars have poured in, and more than 100 churches are currently under construction. But Blair said more is needed to reach the 1,000-church goal by Sept. 1, when Aysheshim’s term ends.

Ray Noah, pastor of Valley Christian Center in Dublin, Calif., has led his church in sponsoring 50 Ethiopian church-plants, and he hopes to sponsor 50 more. He visited Ethiopia twice last year, assisting Blair in training the sponsored pastors.

“These pastors … don’t have anything, but what they have is a passion for the Lord,” Noah said. “They’re very grateful for the resources we bring in, but once you give them that help, they go out there and do the work.”

Though Ethiopia is home to the world’s oldest Christian community, the residents of Benishangul-Gumuz are largely animists. Many still plow by hand and survive by hunting and fishing. Many don’t wear clothing or attend school.

“There’s spiritual darkness and with that spiritual darkness is cultural darkness,” Noah said. “You can tell where a church has been planted. It not only changes the spiritual life of that community, it changes the cultural and social life of that community.”
Adrienne S. Gaines
For more information about The Ethiopian Call, contact the Blair Foundation at 877-418-6265; write 2265 Fraser Road, Kawkawlin, MI 48631; or visit .