With possibility of secession by Southern Sudan, church leaders in north fear more land grabs.

NAIROBI, Kenya, October 25 (Compass Direct News) – Police in Sudan evicted the staff of a Presbyterian church from its events and office site in Khartoum earlier this month, aiding a Muslim businessman’s effort to seize the property.

Christians in Sudan’s capital city told Compass that police entered the compound of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) on Oct. 4 at around 2 p.m. and ordered workers to leave, claiming that the land belonged to Muslim businessman Osman al Tayeb. When asked to show evidence of Al Tayeb’s ownership, however, officers failed to produce any documentation, the sources said.

The church had signed a contract with al Tayeb stipulating the terms under which he could attain the property – including providing legal documents such as a construction permit and then obtaining final approval from SPEC – but those terms remained unmet, church officials said.

Church leader Deng Bol said that under terms of the unfulfilled contract, the SPEC would turn the property over to al Tayeb to construct a business center on the site, with the denomination to receive a share of the returns from the commercial enterprise and regain ownership of the plot after 80 years.

“But the investor failed to produce a single document from the concerned authorities” and therefore resorted to police action to secure the property, Bol said.

SPEC leaders had yet to approve the project because of the high risk of permanently losing the property, he said.

“The SPEC feared that they were going to lose the property after 80 years if they accepted the proposed contract,” Bol said.

SPEC leaders have undertaken legal action to recover the property, he said. The disputed plot of 2,232 square meters is located in a busy part of the heart of Khartoum, where it has been used for Christian rallies and related activities.

“The plot is registered in the name of the church and should not be sold or transfered for any other activities, only for church-related programs,” a church elder who requested anonymity said.

The Rev. Philip Akway, general secretary of the SPEC, told Compass that the government might be annoyed that Christian activities have taken place there for many decades.

“Muslim groups are not happy with the church in north Sudan, therefore they try to cause tension in the church,” Akway told Compass.

The policeman leading the officers in the eviction on Oct. 4 verbally threatened to shoot anyone who interfered, Christian sources said.

“We have orders from higher authorities,” the policeman shouted at the growing throng of irate Christians.

A Christian association called Living Water had planned an exhibit at the SPEC compound on Oct. 6, but an organization leader arrived to find the place fenced off and deserted except for four policemen at the gate, sources said.

SPEC leaders said Muslims have taken over many other Christian properties through similar ploys.

“We see this as a direct plot against their churches’ estates in Sudan,” Akway said.

The Rev. John Tau, vice-moderator for SPEC, said the site where Al Tayeb plans to erect three towers was not targeted accidentally.

“The Muslim businessman seems to be targeting strategic places of the church in order to stop the church from reaching Muslims in the North Sudan,” Tau said.

The unnamed elder said church leaders believe the property grab came in anticipation of the proposed north-south division of Sudan. With less than three months until a Jan. 9 referendum on splitting the country according to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, SPEC leaders have taken a number of measures to guard against what it sees as government interference in church affairs.

Many southern Sudanese Christians fear losing citizenship if south Sudan votes for secession in the forthcoming referendum.

A top Sudanese official has said people in south Sudan will no longer be citizens of the north if their region votes for independence. Information Minister Kamal Obeid told state media last month that south Sudanese will be considered citizens of another state if they choose independence, which led many northern-based southern Sudanese to begin packing.

At the same time, President Omar al-Bashir promised full protection for southern Sudanese and their properties in a recent address. His speech was reinforced by Vice President Ali Osman Taha’s address during a political conference in Juba regarding the signing of a security agreement with First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayardit (also president of the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan), but Obeid’s words have not been forgotten.

Akway of SPEC said it is difficult to know what will become of the property.

“Police continue to guard the compound, and nobody knows for sure what the coming days will bring,” Akway said. “With just less than three months left for the South to decide its fate, we are forced to see this move as a serious development against the church in Sudan.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – Islamic organizations have mounted a campaign against the planned construction of Mother Teresa Catholic Church in West Java Province, where Christian leaders report 20 other churches have faced Muslim hostility since 2009.

Muslim leaders said plans for the Mother Teresa church in the Lippo Cikarang property project in the Cikarang area will make it the largest church building in Bekasi City. Adang Permana, general chairman of the Bekasi Islamic Youth Movement, said Bekasi area Muslims oppose the church building because they fear it will become “a center of Christianization,” according to the Islamic website Hidayatullah.com.

“This church will become the center of apostasy and clearly disturb the faith of Bekasi citizens, who are mostly Muslims,” Permana said, according to the website. “In addition to rejecting this parish church, we also call for the disbanding of all unauthorized churches in Bekasi Regency [City],” he stated. A church leader, however, said area residents had approved the presence of the church.

Adang said opposition to the church was based in the Islamic roots of the city.

“Historically, sociologically, and demographically, Bekasi cannot be separated from Islam, with the cleric K.H. Noer Ali as one of the founders and developers of the city,” Adang told Hidayatullah.com. “Because of this, we reject the church.”

H.M. Dahlan, coordinator of United Muslim Action of Bekasi, also expressed fear that the church would become a center of Christianization in Bekasi.

“Bekasi Muslims reject the presence of this church,” Dahlan said in a letter that he has circulated among mosques in the Bekasi area. In it he states that plans for the Mother Teresa church would make it the largest church building in southeast Asia. The letter has reportedly generated much unrest among area residents.

At a recent press conference, Dahlan said Unified Muslim Action of Bekasi, along with “all Muslims, mosque congregations, leaders of women’s study groups, Quranic schools, and Islamic education foundations have firmly decided to reject the construction of Mother Teresa Catholic Church in Cikarang and request that the Bekasi Regency cancel all [construction] plans.”

The Islamic groups also called on Bekasi officials to clamp down on “illegal churches” meeting in homes and shops and to block “all forms of Christianization” in the area. Local government officials frequently stall Christian applications for building and worship permits, opening the way for Islamic groups to accuse churches of being “illegal.”

The Mother Teresa church applied for a building permit in 2006, but the Bekasi government has not yet acted on the application, said a clergyman from the church identified only as Pangestu. He added that his church has met all requirements of 2006 Joint Ministerial Decrees No. 8 and No. 9, but the permit has still not been granted. The 2006 decrees require at least 60 non-Christian residents to agree to the construction of a church building, and the congregation must have at least 90 members.

The parish now worships at the Trinity School auditorium.

Pangestu said the church has provided school funds for poor children, free clinics, and food for needy neighbors.

“There are no problems between the church and the local people,” Pangestu said.

Mother Teresa Catholic Church began worshiping on Jan. 25, 2004. The church plans to build on an 8,000-square meter lot near Trinity School.

The objections from Islamic groups are the latest evidence of Islamic hostility to churches. Theophilus Bela, president of the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum, released a statement this week that 36 churches in Indonesia have been attacked, harassed or otherwise opposed since 2009; 20 of the churches were located in West Java, with six of those in the Bekasi area.

The list is growing, Bela said, and does not yet include recent reports of 10 churches that local authorities were opposing in Mojokerto, East Java Province, and three others that were closed down in Tembilahan, Riau Province.

Still, large-scale attacks on Christians do not happen as they did in the 1990s and before, he said.

“Now the attacks on churches happen only sporadically,” Bela reported. “In 2007 I noted 100 cases of attacks, and in 2008 the figure went down to only 40 cases, and until October 2009 I noted only eight cases of attacks on Christian churches. But with an attack on St. Albert Catholic Church on Dec. 17, 2009, the figure of cases went up again.”

Click here to view a live streaming of the 24/7 prayer room at IHOP-KC.

The exclusive Charisma interview with Greg Surratt is coming soon. Stayed tuned.

NBA superstar Dwyane Wade’s mother has been to hell and back—and now she’s making hell tremble with a deliverance ministry that sets the captives free. Watch Jolinda Wade share details of her drug abuse, life as a fugitive and her dramatic redemption.

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Killed in a church shooting, Sydney Browning never had a chance to meet the 62 second-graders of Granada Primary School. But today she’s changed their lives, thanks to a university’s 11-year promise fulfilled. To learn more about Sydney Browning and her scholarship check out the links below.

Sydney’s kids are honored.

How Grand Canyon University made a difference.

Listen as Mike Bickle, director of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo., teaches on the praying church and spiritual warfare.

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Over the past few weeks, black crosses have appeared in various locations around the country, including coalmines and energy meetings. Even the White House became a target. After a march from Freedom Plaza and a rally at Lafayette Park, more than 100 people staged a sit-in in front of the White House to demand President Obama end mountaintop mining. Approximately 100 people from the group, called The Black Cross Alliance, were arrested when they refused orders from U.S. Park Police to vacate the sidewalk.

Why all the hubbub? These people have displayed a negative symbol of a black cross around the nation, including our national capitol. In some ways they remind me of the cross burnings of the South. Cross burners sought to uphold their own twisted brand of justice, while abusing the rights of thousands of blacks. The same group of people who were victimized by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) are the victims in the energy debates of our day — poor blacks. The Black Cross Alliance shackles people’s hopes and living standards. They make it harder for people to heat and cool their homes, pay their rent and mortgage, afford a car or medical treatment.

The issue is the radical green community’s insistence on raising the cost of energy for everyone in order to force conservation. Further, they ignore the economic war that radical environmentalists are waging on the finances of the poorest of the poor in our culture by dramatically raising their energy costs. In fact, this is tantamount to levying a regressive tax on the poor.

Let’s start with the dirtiest of fuels. Coal has been mined in the United States for centuries. Our economy and way of life has been supported directly by coal without protest from any group. Only 10 percent of America’s coal supply is mined from the tops of mountains. Let’s then look at oil. We are currently still dependent upon foreign oil when there is plenty of oil within the United States if we chose to drill for it. It has saddened me to see how the Gulf Coast has been jeopardized environmentally, economically and socially because of current off-shore drilling regulations and approaches. Washington needs to make better decisions about how we transition to cleaner energy sources.

The Black Cross Alliance placed their crosses against an industry that is an important source of jobs and a primary source of energy. They wrongly attempt to portray the coal, oil and even natural gas industries as a consortium of greedy killers instead of responsible energy suppliers who serve and employ millions around the world. This group has sought to specifically attack coal, but they are among the most radical green activists, who fail to acknowledge that it will take at least a decade or more to smoothly transition to a cleaner weighted average of energy sources that will continue to fuel home and commercial enterprises without traumatizing the poorest of the poor or bankrupting other American manufacturing entities. For this reason the High Impact Leadership Coalition and the Congress on Racial Equality have helped create the Affordable Power Alliance (which I co-chair) to stand up for the needs of the poor.

Yes, America needs to burn coal more cleanly and efficiently. Thanks to tougher laws, changed attitudes and improved technologies, power plant emissions are way below where they were in 1970, and they continue to decrease. Yet, America needs coal. Half of our nation’s electricity is generated with coal. Moreover, as National Black Chamber of Commerce President Harry Alford has recently pointed out, 86 percent of all African-Americans live within 700 miles of Nashville, Tenn. – many of them in states that get half to nearly all their electricity from coal. In fact West Virginia gets 98 percent of its energy from coal.

So, what do people think about energy alternatives? A September 2010 Ipsos Public Affairs poll found that half of all Americans are unwilling to pay even $5 more per month in total energy costs, even to create “green” jobs, build wind and solar projects, or prevent “global climate disruption.” A third opposes paying even a dime more than they do already. Are Americans callous to going green, or is it that they realize that many current solutions are going to take yet another chunk out of their hard-earned money?

Further, The Green Jobs Revolution that is supposed to be created by our renewable energy efforts is not truly providing plausible work opportunities for Americans. The Green Jobs Revolution instead creates jobs for China and India. The United States is paying billions in subsidies for these energy programs; but the mining, manufacturing, and thus job creation are increasingly taking place overseas, where labor and energy costs are lower, and environmental regulations are far less stringent than in the U.S.

This radical chic energy/economic policy may be fashionable in the elite university parlors of Berkeley and Cambridge, but it is economic euthanasia for millions of struggling, working-class Americans. In a recession, we must focus on survival instead of ideological, impractical solutions.

Anti-coal campaigns equate to many people in America and other countries going without lights or refrigeration. The abundant, dependable, affordable energy of coal or natural gas power generation can bring relief to the world’s poorest countries, communities and families. For them the Black Cross movement equals a real black death. Despite the highly publicized incidents of mine accidents, the events represent a very small percentage of the industry’s operation. Working in a mine is probably less statistically dangerous than driving around the D.C. beltway at rush hour for a year.

What do black crosses really commemorate? They stand as an opposition to jobs, decent living standards, and progress here in America. They stand in opposition to life-enhancing, life-saving electricity for billions who have yet to enjoy any of the basic necessities and comforts that electricity brings. These crosses signify the perpetuation of poverty, misery, disease and death in far too many communities all over our planet.

Harry R. Jackson Jr. is senior pastor of 3,000-member Hope Christian
Church in the nation’s capital. Jackson, who earned an MBA from
Harvard, is a best-selling author and popular conference speaker. He
leads the High-Impact Leadership Coalition.

The average American spends almost $700 during the holiday season—most of that on credit. This year, refuse to be average. Discover how God helped financial adviser Amie Streater dig her way out of $100,000 of credit-card debt, and join her in living debt-free.

Let me tell you about my moment.

I was cruising down the freeway in Fort Worth one beautiful spring day, on my way home from my wonderful job as a not-so-mild-mannered reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper. I was in one of my designer suits, Ferragamos on my pedicured feet, my manicured hands on the steering wheel of my fabulous fifty-thousand-dollar leased SUV, while my hair-with a fresh, seventy-five-dollar haircut-shimmered in the Texas sunlight streaming in from the sunroof. I was privileged enough to be driving to a beautiful house in one of the most coveted suburbs in the area, where, after greeting our children’s nanny in the housekeeper-scrubbed foyer, I would prepare a fabulous dinner, then take a dip in the pool or perhaps soak in the waterfall hot tub.

My husband and I made good money. Our infant twins and preschool son were healthy and happy. We were mighty blessed.

And we were flat broke.

The beautiful home was mortgaged to the hilt. We were fourteen thousand dollars upside down on the “fabulous” leased SUV. My clothes, the kids’ clothes, the haircuts, the makeup, the shoes—all of it went on credit cards. The bills were piling up, but I figured the debt was just part of living my “fabulous” life.

But something inside of me was becoming deeply and profoundly uncomfortable. After making all the minimum credit card payments, sometimes I didn’t have enough money left over to pay for groceries. So I put the groceries on a credit card, along with the diapers and the gasoline.

There was an emotional shift at home as well: Scott and I started to get really agitated whenever something broke around the house because we knew we didn’t have the money to fix it. We were tense and unhappy, in spite of our house full of stuff.

While I had not yet realized just how bad things had actually gotten, I knew deep down that we were headed to a bad place financially and that the slightest unexpected financial setback could send our life crashing down around us.

Fortunately, on that fateful spring day, something happened before I made it home, something that would change my life forever.

Our children’s nanny, Melissa, had become a trusted friend, and I had let her in on our little secret that things were not as perfect as they looked. In response, Melissa bought me some CDs of sermons taught at her church—about money. I put the CDs in the car to listen to on the commute to work, but I was skeptical. What is some pastor going to tell me about money? I know all about money! I thought. But I listened. And on the way home that day, I heard a sermon called “The 90-Day Challenge,” taught by some guy I had never heard of before, named Jeff Drott.

As I listened to him tell his honest and heartbreaking story of losing everything yet finding God, and then learning how to manage what God had entrusted to him, God reached a place in my heart that had been untouched for a very long time. I had been in church thousands of Sundays but never knew God cared how we manage our money.

He does.

In the sermon, Pastor Jeff used a funny, churchy-sounding word that I had never heard before—stewardship—and it pierced my heart like a dagger. My mind was spinning in a way that even now is hard for me to explain. It was like taking a final exam and realizing that half the test was based on a chapter I had accidentally skipped over. I felt panicked. Stewardship? What? What is that? Why do I not know about stewardship? How did I not know that the Bible teaches about money management? Suddenly I realized that everything I thought I knew about money and how to manage it was not only wrong, it was in direct violation of what the Bible teaches about finances. And even after all those Sunday school lessons and church sermons, I had absolutely no idea how polluted my head, heart, emotions, and attitudes had become.

That’s when I felt the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit speaking directly to my materialistic little heart: Honey, you missed this.

If you miss this lesson called stewardship, you miss everything.

When you spend more than you earn, your whole life is a lie. My whole life was a lie. A charade. A house of fancy cards that was ready to topple over. I began to cry so hard that I had to pull over on the side of the freeway. I sat there for probably ten minutes or so, just praying and crying out to God to forgive me. To help me fix things. To help me change. What a mess I had created! We had tons of debt and no savings and were highly leveraged on everything from the shoes on my feet right on up to the home that sheltered my family. How did I let this happen? I wondered. How could I be so stupid? How did I miss this?

I went home and added it all up, all the debt. All the credit cards. All the monthly expenses. The debt was bad—about sixty thousand dollars’ worth, just on the credit cards, not even counting the house or the stupid SUV. And because these were the days when “universal default” was still in play, once we made a late payment on one card, the interest on almost all of them went to more than 30 percent. In a matter of months, sixty thousand grew to more than one hundred thousand, even after we started budgeting and trying to do things the “right” way. We had a huge hole to dig out of.

It was not quick; neither was it particularly enjoyable, but eventually, we saw sunlight again. We were very blessed during the process because our house of cards never fell. And we never filed bankruptcy, never lost a house in foreclosure, and never paid a bill more than a little bit late.

But it was hard. We sacrificed. We sold the SUV, happily, and the house, after many tears. We didn’t see the inside of a restaurant or a movie theater for a long, long time. And yet, in spite of our sacrifices, trivial as they were compared to the trials of so many, we gained a thousand times more than we gave up: new friends, a whole new way of living, and, finally, peace.

Thank you, God, for that peace.

Excerpted from
Your Money God’s Way: Overcoming the 7 Money Myths that Keep Christians
Broke by Amie Streater,
published by Thomas Nelson (2010).  Visit www.AmieStreater.com for more advice from
Amie.

A Note From the Publisher:
As founder and publisher of Charisma, it’s my pleasure to write this note asking for your feedback on our new Charisma News mobile app that is available free for your iPhone or iPod touch, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm webOS or Nokia phone.

Now that the mobile application has been available for about four months, we’d like to know how YOU like it. Our goal has been to keep the content fresh with a new news story virtually every day, and we’re now posting new content daily on our reviews as well as the other categories.

We encourage you to help us by sending us a note at [email protected] or by visiting the application store you downloaded from (Apple App Store, BlackBerry App World, Android Market, Palm App Catalog, Handmark.com, etc.) and rate it according to your experience with the app thus far. We will use your feedback to continually improve your Charisma News experience on your mobile!

We’re developing new apps that you’ll enjoy and will help you in your walk in the Spirit. And we’re developing how you can get Charisma magazine, Ministry Today or Christian Retailing (or other magazines we’ll develop) as an app. Do you have ideas to develop an app? Give us those too!

Our new focus is on “What the Spirit is Saying” with articles and commentary from respected Christian leaders such as R.T. Kendall, Barbara Wentroble, Harry Jackson, J. Lee Grady and others.

God bless you, and thanks for being one of the first to engage with Charisma magazine from this new and exciting technology!

Steve Strang