Charisma associate editor Valerie Lowe recently travelled to Haiti and saw firsthand the devastation that has occurred and God’s miraculous intervention. Watch her on-the-ground Skype interview from Fond Parisien, Haiti.
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Watch a video fof Charisma‘s publisher Steve Strang interviewing Jews for Jesus founder Moishe Rosen.
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Below are some examples of how some well-known Christians use their testimony to talk about Christ.
| “I give God all the credit for my existence, for everything that I’ve ever become. This thing called grace and mercy, that my mother used to talk about all the time, is all I got.” –Steve Harvey, comedian, author |
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“I think that because inside of every one of us we have something tugging at us, telling us to believe in something, to have faith in something bigger than ourselves. [Jesus Christ through His Word] is actually the answer that people are looking for. They just don’t know it.” – Denzel Washington, actor |
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“The Gospels are for everybody from the smallest child to the wisest sage and I fall somewhere in the middle.” —Mel Gibson, actor |
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“I came to faith as a young boy at 12 years old. It was a Sunday school teacher that lead me to the Lord. As a senior in high school, I recommitted my life. I was actually going to grow up and be a pastor, but then I got a job making movies and videos. And that’s where the Lord’s led me.”–Ralph Winter, producer |
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Admit it, whether you are young or old Facebook is probably a (sometimes large) part of your life. With hundreds of millions of people on the social network, shouldn’t Christians use it as an evangelism tool? Charisma enlisted some of our Facebook friends to help us compile this list of the top 10 ways people use Facebook for evangelism. You can join the fun and become a fan of Charisma’s Facebook page by going to facebook.com/charismamagazine.
Many of you who are avid watchers of Christian television have no doubt seen my friend, Alvin Slaughter. He’s a singer of tremendous anointing and incredible good humor.
Alvin tells a story about a time when he was in one of those first class lounges in the airport, waiting to board his next flight. Wearing his ever-present Walkman, he settled back with a favorite music tape and became overwhelmed with the presence of the Lord.
He was so powerfully overtaken with a realization of God’s faithfulness to him and his family that he began to weep-right there in public!
Not wanting to miss the moment but conscious that he was creating a scene, he got the bright notion that he could continue to worship the Lord privately if he just held up a magazine so no one would notice.
It was a great idea, but after several minutes of tearfully whispering his thanks and praises to the Lord, he noticed that no one in the room had been the least bit fooled. They knew he couldn’t possibly be reading the magazine. It was upside down!
Maybe your spontaneous encounters with the Lord haven’t been as humorous as Alvin’s, but I hope you never lose the memories of those moments when, as Joy Strang puts it, “light came into the room.”
I can remember an encounter of my own that occurred many years ago when I lived in New York City. I was taking the subway to work one morning, and like nearly everyone else who rides the trains there, I was reading.
I was poring over “Hinds Feet on High Places” by Hannah Hurnard when I stumbled upon a precious heart-penetrating truth. It was as though Jesus whispered it in my ear.
There in the midst of that noisy subway car, filled with a mass of weary commuters, God opened the heavens to me. It was during rush hours, so the train was packed, but I was aware of no one’s presence but His.
Suddenly, that grimy, crowded train became totally quiet as God filled it with the light of His glory and ministered His love to my soul. How wonderfully surprising it was that He would do that for me!
Yes, I know He’s always there, but if you’ve ever had an experience similar to Alvin’s and mine-what Pat Chen refers to in her book “Intimacy With the Beloved” as a “holy visitation”-you know these special moments are charged with a greater awareness that the God of the universe has interrupted everything to communicate with YOU, He may have broken through to give you needed directions, to prompt you to intercede or simply to say, “I love you.”
How much we miss when we bypass those whisperings of the Spirit of God that often come when we’re too busy or too tired! Whatever we need to do, let’s make room in our lives for more “God-encounters.”
Watch Kirk Cameron share how God miraculously transformed his life.
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Secrets I Have Learned (Ministry Today cover story)
By Oral Roberts
Father of the faith Oral Roberts candidly shares from experience the principles he has learned through the years that have kept his ministry and personal life on track.
Read More
By Jack Hayford
Oral Roberts’ legacy is still teaching us the importance of pursuing a ministry that is both supernatural and substantive.
Read More
By R.T. Kendall
My time with Oral Roberts reminded me of a preaching topic I’ve been sadly neglecting: the return of Christ.
Read More
Healing Evangelist Oral Roberts Dies at Age 91
Oral Roberts, the legendary evangelist who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century, died Tuesday in Newport Beach, Calif., due to complications from pneumonia. He was 91.
Read More
This Friday Preacher’s Kid, a modern retelling of the
story of the prodigal son, will hit the silver screen with a message of
redemption and unconditional love.
“It’s the story of the prodigal child brought forward
into modern time,” said the film’s distributor, Matt Crouch, chief
executive officer of Gener8Xion Entertainment, Inc. “What we were able to
do is put a film camera on a story that Jesus told, trying to describe His love
for man and God’s unconditional love for man.”
Preacher’s Kid, which opens in roughly 100
major-market theaters nationwide, stars Letoya Luckett, a former member of the
R&B girl-group Destiny’s Child, as Angie, a sheltered pastor’s daughter who
decides to strike out from her strict father’s home by joining the cast of a
traveling gospel play. She soon discovers that her “Christian” cast
members aren’t very Christ-like and she finds herself in compromising
situations and ashamed to return home.
“More of the underlining theme is that you can always
come back home,” said Stan Foster, the film’s writer, director and
producer. “With so much negativity going on in the world, with war and the
economy, this is one of those films that is a good family film and you can walk
away feeling good about life and about the family.”
Foster says the film, which is rated PG-13 for its mature
themes, is grounded in the Bible. He says the film is not “preachy”
but uses relatable characters to bring a message of redemption to both
Christian and non-Christian audiences.
“It resonates with each demographic for different
reasons,” said Foster, who also wrote the 2004 film adaptation of Bishop
T.D. Jakes’ book, Woman Thou Art Loosed. “[I wrote]
characters that were flawed. My bad characters have a little bit of good in
them, and good characters have a little bit of bad.”
“In my film everyone has a cross to bear,” he told Charisma.
“Redemption is inevitable.”
Crouch agreed. “Everything about the movie is on the
firm foundation that you’re watching a motion picture where Jesus is the story
teller and that He is trying to describe God’s unconditional love for man,”
Crouch said. “That’s what the story is.”
Foster and Crouch hope the film will have a strong debut
this weekend not only because of its redemptive message, but because 100
percent of its distribution proceeds will be given to charities helping the
victims of the recent earthquakes in Haiti.
“Ultimately the celebratory moment of opening weekend
and opening week that is upon us is somewhat filtered through the thought that
we’re celebrating at the same time that Haiti is suffering,” Crouch told Charisma.
Crouch believes it was a “God idea” to donate opening night
distribution proceeds to support relief work in Haiti because he was able to get
all of the necessary approvals and signatures within 24 hours.
“Obviously it was the Lord’s idea,” Crouch said.
“Possibly somewhere between $3 and $4 of every ticket, if you pay $10,
will go to Haiti.”
The money will be donated to several charities, including
Smile of a Child, Friend Ships and Samaritan’s Purse.
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Mob succeeds in
getting local official to shut down HKBP church in West Java.
A moderate Muslim research institute focusing on interfaith issues in
Indonesia reported 35 cases of government violations of religious freedom –
including 28 against Christians – and 93 instances of community intolerance of
churches in 2009.
(Photo is not of HKBP church in West Java)
The Wahid
Institute issued a year-end report of violations that included the revocation of
the building permit for the HKBP Cinere Church – later overturned in court –
opposition to a Catholic Church in Purwakarta and an order forbidding worship by
the Filadelfia Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church (HKBP) in Bekasi,
West Java.
The highest
number of violations occurred in West Java, with 10 cases, including seven
against Christians; next was East Java with eight, including four against
Christians, followed by Jakarta Province with four (three against Christians).
In Central Java, two of three religious violation cases were against Christians,
and in West Nusa Tenggara, one of the three violations violated Christians’
rights.
Government
infractions included closing churches and failing to intervene in mob actions.
Police were cited in 18 cases, provincial governments in eight, village and
sub-district governments in six cases each and courts in two
incidents.
Just as
government violations were highest in West Java, community intolerance there was
also highest with 32 cases, of which 14 were against Christians. Next was
Jakarta, where eight of 15 cases of community intolerance were against
Christians, then East Java where six of 14 cases hurt Christians. In Central
Java, Christians were the victims in five of the 13 cases of community
intolerance.
In West Java,
the root problem is the spread of hatred against religious groups, including
Christians and Jews, according to the report.
While the
reported violations of religious freedom were lower than in 2008, the issue of
religious intolerance continued to grow during 2009, aided by legislative and
presidential elections as religion is often used to gain votes in Indonesian
elections, according to the study. The overall figure of 128 cases of violations
of religious freedom by government or society in 2009 represents a drop from the
2008 figure of 234 cases, according to the Wahid
Institute.
Yenny Zanuba
Wahid, director of the institute, told Compass that the government has not
considered freedom of religion an important issue that needed attention. As a
result, the government has not addressed reports of intolerance even in the face
of international pressure.
“The government
has been timid to acknowledge violations of religious freedom, but these are
real and are carried out directly by government bodies or indirectly as a result
[of government] policies,” Wahid said.
Muslims make up
88.2 percent of Indonesia’s population of about 240 million people, with
Protestant Christians making up 5.9 percent, Catholics 3.1 percent, Hindus 0.8
percent, Buddhists 0.2 percent, and other religions 0.2 percent.
Church
Closure
In West Java,
mob efforts to shut down the Filadelfia Huria Kristen Batak Protestan
Church (HKBP) in Bekasi succeeded on Dec. 31 when the district officer issued a
decree ordering a stop to all worship activities at the site of the church
building under construction.
The decree
ordered that the construction of the building stop, and that the structure not
be used for worship until the building permit process was final. The district
officer based his recommendation upon a 1990 rule regarding building permits in
Bekasi.
Tigor
Tambubolon, head of the church building committee, acknowledged that the
building permit had not been formally granted even though the process had been
under way since 2000.
“We already have
the permission of the Jejalen citizens,” Tambubolon told Compass. “That’s why we
were brave enough to hold Christmas Eve services.”
Last Christmas
Eve hundreds of protestors demanding a halt to worship demonstrated against
services at the site, where 279 Christians had gathered.
A New Year’s
service scheduled to take place at the site moved to the office of the village
head due to fears that protestors would become unruly. Police Chief Herry Wibowo
said his officers guarded the church site at that time.
The Rev. Palti
Panjaitan of Filadelfia HKBP told Compass that the church had been worshipping
in the area since 2000 by meeting at various members’ homes. As the congregation
grew, they rented a building combining a home and store in Vila Bekasi 2 Tambun.
“The local
citizens demonstrated against our worship services,” said Panjaitan. “From there
we moved to a member’s home in Jejalan village. We profited because the Jejalan
citizens were very good.”
Eventually the
church bought a piece of land there. A number of the community leaders and the
village head gave their agreement to build the Filadelfia HKBP church
there.
The Interfaith
Harmony Forum of Bekasi district gave approval for the building with the
stipulation that the church obey a joint ministerial decree revised in 2006
regarding construction of houses of worship. The building committee obtained
signatures of 259 non-Christians endorsing the project, though the joint decree
required only 60 signatures. Then the building committee wrote a formal request
for a building permit.
Church elder
Tambubolon, however, added that a sub-district officer collected signatures from
citizens opposed to the construction of a house of worship in Jejalan. The total
number of signatures is unknown, but the sub-district office sent a letter to
the district officer rejecting the building permit.
Nevertheless,
Tambubolon said, the church is not considering a lawsuit over the district
officer’s decree.
“We are going to
continue worshipping, because it is the right of every citizen,” he said. “If we
are forbidden to worship even in the village office, we will continue to do
so.”
Here are 10 reasons not to tell unbelievers about Christ.